ArenaNet: Dynamic Leveling Adjustment

Hello, I'm Isaiah Cartwright, the lead game designer for Guild Wars two. I'd like to speak today about several modifications we made to our dynamic leveling strategy, which makes it possible for players to appreciate the content on any map at any level.

We had one or two difficulties with this system that we made adjustments to. When high-level characters played in lower level zones, they were a bit too potent, so the content was not as difficult as it could be. As a result of this, we also scaled down the rewards a bit too much.

As of the January 28 build, we made many alterations to the dynamic scaling procedure to address these difficulties:

1.) We changed the formula for how attributes are calculated when the dynamic leveling adjustment tactic scales you down. This makes returning to lower level zones more fun and better balanced.
2.) We changed the formula for how rewards are calculated when scaled down to make it more fulfilling for high-level players to visit lower level locations.

The objective is to more accurately reflect the attributes you need to have at that level for a similarly geared character. While this will make a number of sections harder, our goal is to make all locations of Guild Wars 2 thrilling & fun for players of any level. We also need gw2 gold players of all levels to feel like their time is well spent & rewarding in any map they go to.

In 2013, one of our main objectives is to add more content to maps of all levels, as well as more robust reward structures for playing across all areas in the world. This will give us a strong structure of experiences, issues to resolve, & rewards which are balanced for a player of any level in any map and help make the social experience of playing anywhere in our game more thrilling.

Thanks for playing!

Honestly I'm not certain how I feel about this yet. I will must experience it a bit more to honestly grasp how it is going to impact the players. I'm leaning towards the positive side right now, nevertheless I know there is going to be the backlash of "Hey, why am I having a difficult time killing these level 5 enemies when I'm level 80?!" & it could end up dividing the Guild Wars 2 gold player base a bit in that regard.

This really is just me, though I hate scaling. But I guess you can only have it 2 distinctive methods. Either have low level places, that are simple and have not much reward, or have low level areas that scale you down and nonetheless give you proper rewards for the level that you are honestly at. Atleast, I hope the 2nd 1 is in fact is really how they did it. What is the point of scaling us down if we do not get additional reward for it.

Not genuine fond of the modify. As a crafter/explorer I don't honestly find investing all my time killing lower level mobs that fun. Mobs that previously took 5-8 attacks are now taking 8-12 attacks. Running around a mob constantly button pushing gets incredibly old & in point of fact is not fun or challenging. When I need challenge I modify my target type.

I've not noticed a difference in the gameplay, maybe points take several more hits, however to me its not noticable. I have recognized an expand in the rewards however. On the toons I am lvling I go via every zone lvling them up. All the starter zones, then the 15-25 zones & so on. So I am always a bit further lvl than the zone after the very first couple of starter zones. For instance my charr warrior is 45 & is 70% done with the charr 15-25 zone, Disseua Platuea (Yeah I know thats spelled wrong) so he's being scalled down at least 20 lvls now. The zone feels just as easy just like I was doing it on a lvl 80 toon.