127988-power-creep-and-the-future-of-solo-and-small-group-content

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Hello there. I am not really sure if the title is a good indication of what I want to talk about (the future of solo and small group content with power creep in mind). But eh, I'll try. xD
 
We already know that the power creep is real. However, that mostly applies to the raid content. The increase in itemlevel from 5 man -> GA -> DS is pretty high, compared to, let's say, Adventure -> 5 man or the solo questing. And we all know it will only increase with the next big raid.
 
Now, I don't know what Carbine plans for the future. Expansion packs with increased max level and a gear reset? Or maybe just add more of the stuff that was planned for release (Shade's Eve, more leveling zones etc.) and continue the current road? While I think it will be most likely the first option in the next 1-2 years, I would still like to hear your opinion on power creep in increasing difficulty for solo and small group content. Since release we got Bay of Betrayal and Ultimate Protogames, both being harder than the other adventures or dungeons. However, instead of just adding a new adventure which has better loot than the others (and maybe even that a few dungeons), I would like to see a second tier of small group content appear over time. When the next big raid gets released we can all be pretty sure that it will be harder than DS and will drop better loot, so all DS loot will get replaced over time. And I would like something like this for small group content, so you can actually progress further down the road. 
 
Basically, I whish that sometime in the future, we have enough content so small group could progress like this:
 
T1 Adventures -> T1 Dungeons -> Current Overlap (Bay of Betrayal, Ultimate Protogames) -> T2 Adventures -> T2 Dungeons
 
T2 would have better gear and be harder than T1, just like DS is harder than GA. Of course there need to be at least 3-4 adventures and dungeons to have enough bosses and events to equip each role and each class. This is of course way too much compared to other content (raids and PvP as well as solo content), which is why this option would only be really feasible of we would stay at level 50 for the next couple of years. I just think it's a shame that while raiders get a whole new tier of items with each big raid, small group content is nearly stagnat. Several tiers of difficulty might also be just an idea that can be done when a new expansion hits, so at one point, when the third raid hits, small groups can also progress through tiers and get gear on par or a bit better then the by then old first raid. On one hand "this makes the first raid obsolote". Well, somewhat, because if a second tier of adventures/dungeond would be added that would also take several months, so to completely gear a character all of those dungeons need to be released first. 
 
So, yeah. I hope you get what I wanted to say. And I know adding something like this now is not really feasable, as it will take too much time, but maybe a few months/years down the road, we get something like this.	
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			Rather then adding different tiers and shit , wouldnt it be more feasable to develop a good scaling system that will be optional like in shiphands/adventures and have bigger and more rewards .(more runefragments , higher chance for fluff for example) , but that need to be personal loot that drops from every boss .	
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			Are you talking about a scaling system regarding group size or difficulty? I think a scaling system has it's place with shiphands and expeditions and even some outdoor mobs and bosses, but if you would implement this you need to balance it so a solo player or 2 people as well as 5 have it challenging. And when you have 4 or 5 you would require a tank and a healer or you just get another shiphand. 	
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			If put in T2 adv/dungeons with better gear, woudl have to increase the gear for GA/ds or these raids become obselete.  And I am pretty sure they mentioned they don't want the raids to, and even possibly improving the raids/scaling as content comes.  So raid progression will always be GA>DS>RAID>RAID	
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If put in T2 adv/dungeons with better gear, woudl have to increase the gear for GA/ds or these raids become obselete.  And I am pretty sure they mentioned they don't want the raids to, and even possibly improving the raids/scaling as content comes.  So raid progression will always be GA>DS>RAID>RAID
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			I wouldn't mind to see a dungeon and an adventure that are on par with GA floor 2 in terms of loot/difficulty. The raids will still have the legendary equipment (upgrades over dungeons) and additional dungeons can server as place to put items with varying itemizations or other items to change play that we need (gadgets and more gadgets).  	
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			I was talking about scaling of character stats .If you opt in to scale down your power level to the appropriate level of the content , you get additional loot.	
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			Yes, putting in a dungeon with GA gear level, would make GA obselete.  Why run the GA raid if I can get the loot from a dungeon, with no lockouts?  Would have to increase the ILvl of GA loot but oh look, want another dungeon....cycle instead of progression of GA to DS	
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			Scaling people in better gear down to the instance level is an awful idea. Downscaling in general is reviled for a reason: people worked hard to get that gear, they should be able to enjoy the benefits of having it. Does it trivialize some earlier content? I guess, in the sense that you have higher DPS and kill things faster, and your tank doesn't require as much healing. But a GA/DS-geared non-tank player will still die just as quickly to fight mechanics if they screw things up, since the armor/health boost from that gear is minimal.	
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Yes, putting in a dungeon with GA gear level, would make GA obselete.  Why run the GA raid if I can get the loot from a dungeon, with no lockouts?  Would have to increase the ILvl of GA loot but oh look, want another dungeon....cycle instead of progression of GA to DS
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Just make the dungeon loot table not drop a full set of gear for each class/role and make the stuff have sub-prime optimization so it's an upgrade over T1 dungeon loot, but not GA loot, then suddenly GA isn't obsolete. Having a second tier of dungeons is a great idea, both for catch-up purposes and for longevity of small-group content.
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Scaling people in better gear down to the instance level is an awful idea. Downscaling in general is reviled for a reason: people worked hard to get that gear, they should be able to enjoy the benefits of having it. Does it trivialize some earlier content? I guess, in the sense that you have higher DPS and kill things faster, and your tank doesn't require as much healing. But a GA/DS-geared non-tank player will still die just as quickly to fight mechanics if they screw things up, since the armor/health boost from that gear is minimal.
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Downscaling is perfectly fine if its optional as i suggested . You simply opt in to have your gear scaled down and receive more/better rewards for doing said content .
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I'm assuming the OP means in an "expansion" when we see new content across the board... raids, dungeons, adventures etc.
 
I'm pretty sure you can count on the current content being obsolete when that happens, but that's ok. That's the design of a vertical progression system.	
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I'm assuming the OP means in an "expansion" when we see new content across the board... raids, dungeons, adventures etc.
 
I'm pretty sure you can count on the current content being obsolete when that happens, but that's ok. That's the design of a vertical progression system.
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Like many wise ppl have said before...It's all about the loot baby! Loot is the main driver in pve mmo. In pvp mmo it is more complex..but loot will be part of the drive for pvp also.
 
That said..I think Wildstar is build upon power creep like many other mmo's (e.g WOW) and I think its oki:)	
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I'm assuming the OP means in an "expansion" when we see new content across the board... raids, dungeons, adventures etc.
 
I'm pretty sure you can count on the current content being obsolete when that happens, but that's ok. That's the design of a vertical progression system.
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			But Marston, the gear progression you're talking about already exists in the game; it's been there ever since the re-itemization and loot redistribution in dungeons. Vet SSM and Protogames give better gear than the other dungeons, at the cost of coming from more difficult content (because those two are not nearly on the same level as STL, SC, and KV). They are the half-step in between dungeon and raid gear. The ilvl 61 purple gear from the Glory vendor fills in any holes, and you also have the chance to get pre-raid quality gear from contacts and Partial Primal Pattern trade-ins. All of that is overkill for getting into GA; I have a character with 3200 AP who has never stepped foot into a raid.	
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			I'd really hate it if current raids become obsolete and getting forgotten after the level cap is rised . There's so much work put into these instance and it will be a shame if they go to waste .
			
				
	Edited June 16, 2015 by j0shm4n	
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But Marston, the gear progression you're talking about already exists in the game; it's been there ever since the re-itemization and loot redistribution in dungeons. Vet SSM and Protogames give better gear than the other dungeons, at the cost of coming from more difficult content (because those two are not nearly on the same level as STL, SC, and KV). They are the half-step in between dungeon and raid gear. The ilvl 61 purple gear from the Glory vendor fills in any holes, and you also have the chance to get pre-raid quality gear from contacts and Partial Primal Pattern trade-ins. All of that is overkill for getting into GA; I have a character with 3200 AP who has never stepped foot into a raid.
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I'd really hate it if current raids become obsolete and getting forgotten after the level cap is rised . There's so much work put into these instance and it will be a shame if they go to waste .
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Guild Wars 2 is easily the second most popular MMO ever in the west. While WoW goes through cycles of gaining and losing players with every patch - Guild Wars 2 has remained a steady beast of success.
 
So I do not know where you get this idea that downscaling is generally reviled.
 
You revile it. Several million potential other Wildstar players love it.
 
In WoW, easily 95% of all content ever made for that game is now semi-obsolete. You level past it and gear past it so fast you barely see it. Of that, half or more is completely obsolete: you do a zone at its starting level and before you are halfway through the quests are no longer giving experience... and raids... the gear they drop is worse than the starter quest gear of the zones of the same level that happened to be the starter spots of the next expansion.
 
So Blizzard pays a LOT of money to keep servers and data in its database... that has no purpose.
 
In Guild Wars 2... because downscaling was done with gear progression in mind, and when you downscale you get gear relevant to your level and if max relevant to progression... every single zone and dungeon in the game is getting used by hordes of players ever day. Three years in, and not one piece of the game has become a 'dead zone'... And there are a few million players in there using it.
 
That is what I call a model for success.
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Scaling people in better gear down to the instance level is an awful idea. Downscaling in general is reviled for a reason: people worked hard to get that gear, they should be able to enjoy the benefits of having it. Does it trivialize some earlier content? I guess,
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			Downscaling made me feel like i did not progress at all in the game.  It has it's place, maybe specific areas in the zones but no thank you.	
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Downscaling made me feel like i did not progress at all in the game.  It has it's place, maybe specific areas in the zones but no thank you.
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This does however create a true end game.
What will you do if you have the best gear, wait till the next raid comes out, level an alt?
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Yes. Ha, I'm not even done with raiding, I think 9 guilds have cleared raiding....a whole 180 poeple(not counting subs) in this huge game. This game is about progression, in GW2, you don't really "progress" by going back. IMHO it's a lazy way to keep content there and have poeple redo stuff instead of put in new content. I have leveled to max level in GW2, than got bored for their "endgame". I already spent time in a zone and leveled it and "beat it" that why do I want to go back? If you go down to the level for the plac,e why even have levels in the game?
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and you CAN have downscaling with progression.
downscaling only makes the previous content not a faceroll and more replayable, but you still need to progress to be able to do the next tier of content.
 
there is absolutely no reason to not have this in a modern mmo.
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why have level?
because you cannot go to "next" zone without having enough levels.
but with scaling you can always go back.
the previous content is not rendered useless by powercreep. you can still run some instances with a fun challenge to it (and maybe can have rewards that you need too!)
it makes the game less linear and more about "options".
 
in wildstar once you hit the raids you never go back.
so you raid and raid and raid until you burn out.
and a LOT burnt out.
 
 
 
hey. dude.
just look at the Gw2's forums and see the life over there.
its a graveyard here in comparison.
 
and you CAN have downscaling with progression.
downscaling only makes the previous content not a faceroll and more replayable, but you still need to progress to be able to do the next tier of content.
 
there is absolutely no reason to not have this in a modern mmo.
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			Rift raids have been faceroll ever since they released their first expansion btw , so i dont know if you actually raided in RIft .. Also i get that you don't want to do raids that you have farmed for a while , but you are not the only person playing this game . What if someone wants to help a new guild progress in a raid or just help them fill out numbers , but he doesnt need any gear ? Having optional downscaling would give these players the same challenge they had when they progressed in that raid and also give them additional rewards (Rune fragments , fluxes , exceptional runes comes into my mind) . Downscaling could work very well , unless Carbine decides to raise the level cap at some point , that will make every old instance irelevant and no one will bother doing them .	
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Rift raids have been faceroll ever since they released their first expansion btw , so i dont know if you actually raided in RIft .. Also i get that you don't want to do raids that you have farmed for a while , but you are not the only person playing this game . What if someone wants to help a new guild progress in a raid or just help them fill out numbers , but he doesnt need any gear ? Having optional downscaling would give these players the same challenge they had when they progressed in that raid and also give them additional rewards (Rune fragments , fluxes , exceptional runes comes into my mind) . Downscaling could work very well , unless Carbine decides to raise the level cap at some point , that will make every old instance irelevant and no one will bother doing them .
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eh...don't think they'd need to put in downscaling for raids until they raise the level or they do keep the cap of 50 and just continue with tiers. Since I'm pretty sure that even if you're in DS gear you're gonna get your butt kicked if you don't pay attention in GA. Same goes to an extent for veteran dungeons...
 
The only way I'd see them doing a mechanical option to have the player downscaled to a snapshot is if the gear in the overall game actually puts everyone(not just raiders) at a point where the gap in power is so large that t's be like an unscaled 50 in DS gear walking into normal STL. Even then can just do as Orrestes says and just remove gear	
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