Instance Normalization

In one of the E3 articles, it says that a Lev 2 questing with a Lev 50 will be upgraded, temporarily, to Lev 50.

This made me ask myself, why then is leveling important?

What I mean is that how is a Lev 50 really distinguished from a Lev 2.

Will there be certain parts of the world only open to a Lev 50? Will armor and weapons only be usable by a Lev 50?

And will the instances scale down as well as up. So if I take my Lev 50 into a Lev 2 instance to help my wife, will my Lev 50's abilities scale down to Lev 2?

And in the opposite scenario, will the Lev 2 who is upgraded to Lev 50 have their weapons and spells upgraded too? Will the upgraded Lev 2 wizard suddenly get access to Lev 50 spells or will their Lev 2 spells become stronger?
 
I thought that as well. So far that system seems flawed in my eyes, and needs work from what has been told. Only time will tell though. Hopefully in my next Q&A with Simutronics I can get an answer to that question :smiley:
 
And I was also thinking, what is the incentive to try harder instances, when all the instances will scale to my abilities anyway.

I suppose loot would be better, and of course the challenge, but what other incentives will there be.
 
Someone has to be level 50 for the other party member to be raised temporarily to level 50. This is a similar system to what is used in City of Heros.

Also, keep in mind that you have some kind of life quest you will want to complete ...

Personally, I love what HJ is doing with this system. :smiley:
 
The instance doesn't scale...you scale. And you will only scale if you are grouped with another lvl 50 as per the example. If you go in that same instance with others at your level then no scaling will occur and you will be one-shotted by the mobs. So if you want an instance to be challenging don't group with high level characters.
 
Reading how I wrote my first entry in this thread, I see myself coming off as having doubt, but really I am just curious.

I never played CoH, so the concept of scaling is new to me.

I too, believe in the HJ vision, but the mechanics have me intrigued.

:smiley:
 
Originally posted by Presto@May 14 2006, 09:25 AM
This made me ask myself, why then is leveling important?
Any content outside of singular instances.
 
Whats the incentive to leveling?

1. So you don't always HAVE to be in a group to do ANYTHING.

2. So your not always dependent on high levels.

3. So you can flex your E-peen and say. "I HAVE A LEVEL 100 QWI MORTICIAN!"

4. Because it is part of the game.

/end list

If you obtain an item when scaled up, you keep the item, but when you scale down, you can't use the item. So you would want to level to ACTUALLY use it.

The system is a bit odd to me, but just becuase all of the other games have brainwashed me. :D
 
Originally posted by Presto@May 14 2006, 04:25 PM
In one of the E3 articles, it says that a Lev 2 questing with a Lev 50 will be upgraded, temporarily, to Lev 50.

This made me ask myself, why then is leveling important?

What I mean is that how is a Lev 50 really distinguished from a Lev 2.

Will there be certain parts of the world only open to a Lev 50? Will armor and weapons only be usable by a Lev 50?

And will the instances scale down as well as up. So if I take my Lev 50 into a Lev 2 instance to help my wife, will my Lev 50's abilities scale down to Lev 2?

And in the opposite scenario, will the Lev 2 who is upgraded to Lev 50 have their weapons and spells upgraded too? Will the upgraded Lev 2 wizard suddenly get access to Lev 50 spells or will their Lev 2 spells become stronger?
What about Presto's really interesting question:

And will the instances scale down as well as up. So if I take my Lev 50 into a Lev 2 instance to help my wife, will my Lev 50's abilities scale down to Lev 2?

Typically (and I haven't heard one way or the other concerning HJ yet), as a lower level character you will want to work through the various lower level instances to a) further the overall story (I'm assuming there is one - maybe a thread that runs throughout) and B) experience what others did to have a common frame of reference and c) get items that you can use at your level. If that's the case, and players want to have fun, a lvl 50 grouped with a lvl 2 should allow the party to play a lvl 2 area or instance but make it fun and challenging.

I think that maybe this is a very complicated issue and that this temporary leveling up may cause some issues for lower level players if it isn't done right.
 
Didn't they say the instance would change according to level, as in mob level's and such.

I don't think you can ever jump into an instance and get "One-Shotted", if the instance changes to the characters, then it's all fine and dandy.

It's the fact that they don't want to lower your level when playing with lower levels, so you can all play fairly and keep what you have.

And I believe the incentive to leveling is just more abilities, and weapons and such. ;)

Remember, they make it for RP, so they don't give a felgercarb about level competition.

Also, I think they might do this for PvP also, is change everyone's level to 50, for actual skill playing.

RP is teh shiet. :lol:
 
You - level 50
Friend - level 2
Instance - level 2
Mobs - level 2

The highest would manipulate.

You - level 50
Friend - level 50
Instance - level 50
Mobs - level 50

This is infact if there really were such a thing as mob levels, and instance levels.
 
Originally posted by Presto@May 14 2006, 04:41 PM
And I was also thinking, what is the incentive to try harder instances, when all the instances will scale to my abilities anyway.

I suppose loot would be better, and of course the challenge, but what other incentives will there be.
You sound like an old hat EQ player *hugs*

The level grinds are not the objective of this game, as they state several times in some 28 interveiws so far. Adventuring and fun and community are the goals it seems.

Perhaps the levels are just there to guild us poor saps that are stuck on the 'grind' and 'end game' conept that EQ has made standard and all games now copy. Except for HJ.
 
Originally posted by Seeria@May 14 2006, 01:45 PM
You sound like an old hat EQ player *hugs*

The level grinds are not the objective of this game, as they state several times in some 28 interveiws so far. Adventuring and fun and community are the goals it seems.

Perhaps the levels are just there to guild us poor saps that are stuck on the 'grind' and 'end game' conept that EQ has made standard and all games now copy. Except for HJ.
No, not an EQ player, and I really do not like the grinding.

I just want to understand how the mechanics of the game work. Like others here, I have been brainwashed to see instancing in a particular way, and I am tryin to keep my mind open to the possibilities HJ promises to bring.

For me, the journey has more value than the goal. Or, the journey is the goal.

Still, given the other games out there, end game content is an issue. From what I understand of HJ, their goal is to make the pre-end game equal to the end game in terms of fun.

If they can achieve this, I laud them, and more importantly, I have found my new home. Please, come in, have a cup of tea...
 
I can say that "instancing" does not *need* to scale. In DAoC, they had several instanced dungeons, and instance "wings" off of public dungeons.

Many instanced dungeons were a set level, say from Level 41 to 50. The mobs would always con blue at the beginning and yellow throughout most of the dungeon, perhaps the boss would be orange. When you gained a level, the mobs would change level appropriately to match yours, if you were solo. If you were grouped, then the instance would scale to your group, and most mobs would be a red or purple con (good chance of dying solo to reds & purples).

Only time will tell as to what kind of instances HJ will possess.... or a GM willing to talk ;)

~ Jaraeth
 
I don't know how they are going to do scaling, but they better do it in a decent way or people wont even want to attempt to level up. The only reason they would, would possibly be for rare Wyr. Thats all I can think of with the information that has been released to us this far.
 
CoH has this system, called Side Kicking, and it works great. It allows friends to play together that have different playstyles and play time. I think EQ2 adopted it later it was so good. It's one of those thing that once you try it, you wonder why every game doesnt have it.

From what I have read in the release it will work very closely to how CoH has theres, although there were some things that were not mentioned.
Ok, here is how it works. a lvl 50 player and a lvl 3 player group. The lvl 3 player has all his attributes scaled to lvl 50. However, he wont have all the attributes as a lvl 50, nor have as extensive Wyr types or slots. So while HP's and base stats will be equal a true lvl 50 is going ot be a bit more capable. The mobs will scale of course, making it level appropriate to both players. Keep in mind the lvl 3 player is not going ot be as effective, due to not having as powerful Wry. I found that in CoH (which works very similarly) that even so, a "leveled" character was still quite effective.

The one thing that CoH added later was a "reverse SK", where a lvl 3 player could group with a lvl 50 and bring them down to their level. I dont know if HJ is planning that or not.
 
unfortunatly, the reverse sk doesn't work so well in COH. The problem was that when they lowered the lvl of that lvl 50, everything would lower except his enhancments. He would be like a lvl 3 but with SO enhancements giving him a HUGE power boost for a lvl 3 compared to others. The biggest problem of this was in pvp when two people of different lvls tried to fight each other but the guy that lowered his lvl to fit the other still had a large advantage because of his higher lvl enhancements.
 
I'm going to assume that Sim won't be allowing this mentoring anywhere but in instances. To do so during PvP might have just the problem you listed above. However.... pvp is not a big focus of this game, so... *shrug*

Their instance scaling sounds like Daoc's system... perhaps with more wide range. Just don't make them boring like Daoc's lol Worst design of an instance I ever saw in any game, online or not.
 
Originally posted by Daax@May 15 2006, 11:03 AM
unfortunatly, the reverse sk doesn't work so well in COH. The problem was that when they lowered the lvl of that lvl 50, everything would lower except his enhancments. He would be like a lvl 3 but with SO enhancements giving him a HUGE power boost for a lvl 3 compared to others. The biggest problem of this was in pvp when two people of different lvls tried to fight each other but the guy that lowered his lvl to fit the other still had a large advantage because of his higher lvl enhancements.

I agree about the reverse sking for PvP, big exploit there. I found however that for PvE it worked well. I know that when I got reverse sked, man things seemed pretty hard. Not having most of my powers sucked! One other thing to mention is that you had to ber a certain distance from your "mentor" otherwise if you got too far away, the effects dropped and you went back to lvl 3.

Seeria, what part about DApC's instanceing was bad? I have some expereince with it, and I didnt' feel it was that poorly done. Is there another game you have tried that was better, and how so?
 
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