Scaling details please - Blue Tracker

#1 - June 25, 2018, 5:35 a.m.

Could we get some insight on where the team wants player gear and level scaling to be and why? We've had 2 developer posts on the topic and both are fairly ambiguous. The most recent asked for feedback on anomalies and bugs but without more information how do we know a bug is a bug? This is evident by the amount of scaling feedback posts all claiming numerous things to be both intended and bugs.

For example Phalanx said level 60s doing more damage than 110s is a bug. What if they're doing the same damage or slightly lower? How close do you want it? Why would you even want a level 60 to be able to kill a max level player? Does that not completely undermine the time and resources it took to level or gear?

I think clearing this up will significantly help with feedback. The first post on the topic we got mentioned scaling being used to create "fair fights" and "good gameplay" but both of these terms are subjective. So what's the teams interpretation?

Personally I don't understand level scaling in the first place. Level scaling is (hopefully) a self defense mechanic but warmode being voluntary is the ultimate defense for low levels.

I've made my feelings known about scaling a few times, you can find most of them in my other thread if you want https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20764136500

I'll conclude by saying the game feels like it's in between steps of phasing levels out completely but the reward/progress structure hasn't kept up. As a result keeping levels and gear while nullifying their usefulness and meaning feels absolutely awful. It's a game design incompatible with itself.

If scaling must stay, at the very least the maximum wpvp gaps must be bigger than the maximum ~10% gap in instanced pvp. Especially when you consider the realistic gap or most common gap will be 2-3%.

Please remember accessibility comes at the cost of motivation and discovery.

inb4 "Wheel chair ramps cost motivation and discovery!?"
Obviously not the same kind of accessibility.

#46 - June 29, 2018, 12:49 a.m.

So the goal with "scaling" in PvP is merely to reduce the power gap between players where appropriate. In PvE, this is not a big deal. Theoretically if you gain 200% player power from the first tier of an expansion to the last in PvE, none of the creatures are going to complain. But if you have just leveled up (or are in the process of leveling in a zone with max level players), the power difference may not "feel fair."

The point of the scaling changes is not to make it so levels or gear don't matter. A player who is higher level than you and/or has a higher iLevel than you are going to have an advantage.

We were experimenting with using the system to also work between much larger level gaps (i.e. a level 60 player vs a level 120 player), but have decided to only utilize it for players at level 110 to 120 for now.

Thanks for your feedback and testing on this feature, it's helped out a ton!