Solo Scaling - Instances do not scale down, but quests do

Enodoc

Back in Update 5, (Patch 1.5.2), Solo Scaling was introduced:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote:

Solo Scaling

• Solo instances will now scale to your level. This means when you play through the Main Story, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild and other solo content, it will remain a challenge and you can do it on your own time. Below are some things to note about solo scaling:
  • Solo instances do not scale below the level they are introduced. For example, Thizzrini Arena begins scaling from level 42.
  • Solo instances do not scale past Veteran Rank 12 at this time.
  • Solo scaling is determined by your level upon entering the instance, and remains there for the session.
  • Solo scaling recognizes when you are having difficulty with a particular instance, and will compensate accordingly.
• The following solo content will now scale:
  • Main Quest
  • Fighters Guild
  • Mages Guild
  • Stirk
  • Werewolf Quest
  • Vampire Quest
  • Thizzrini Arena
  • Orrery of Elden Root
  • Cathedral of the Golden Path in Southpoint

The important part of this is Solo instances do not scale below the level they are introduced. Now that's fine, and is working as intended. But it appears that their associated quests are scaling below their original level. For example, the Thizzrini instance scales from 42, but I did the Thizzrini quest at Level 41 last week, and the quest scaled down to my level. Similarly, Stirk scales from 43, but I did Weight of Three Crowns yesterday at Level 42 and it came up as Level 42. I noticed a similar thing in a thread somewhere about the Mages Guild questline, where the quest associated with the Circus of Cheerful Slaughter was appearing as Level 15 even though the enemies in that instance scale up from Level 25. That quest should therefore also be displaying as Level 25.

Whether that's intended or not, I don't know, but I would like to suggest that, since instances do not scale below the level they are introduced at, their associated quests should not scale below that level either. Because the quests are scaling down, you are not getting appropriate reward for tackling the content, which is at a higher level than the quest implies.

Aett_Thorn

I would think that the quest would scale down so that you get a reward that you can use right away, versus, say, taking on a level 43 quest at level 38, and getting a level 42 ring that you can't even use yet.

I could also be done because they don't want people abusing the higher-level rewards to get a massive amount of XP upon quest completion for low-level characters.

Enodoc

The item suggestion makes sense, but I would rather be appropriately rewarded for effort than get a lesser reward just so that I can use now. It also results in the item itself being lesser than default. The XP reward wouldn't be an issue, as XP is capped at 10% of XP-to-level. The situation would just be the same as completing any normal quest under level (say, the Level 43 Dune quest in Reaper's March at Level 41), which gives you reward appropriate to the content. As it stands now, you're getting a lesser reward for completing something harder when it's scaled, whereas for anything not scaled that is harder, you get a (relatively) greater reward.

UrQuan

I'm with @Enodoc on this. The major problem I see with the current system is that if you're significantly lower level than the minimum level the quest enemies scale down to, you are unlikely to realize that because the quest displays as your level.

So in the Mages Guild quest example, it appears as a level 15 quest in your journal because you're level 15, but when you go to do the quest you get a rude awakening when you find that all of the enemies are level 25. With the quest always showing as your current level, regardless of what level the enemies will be, it can be difficult to know if it's a quest you should wait and take on later.