Talking experiments... could we get dynamic difficulty scaling for older group-oriented content?

Ingel_Riday · December 17

The above kind of already exists for dolmens. If you're running a dolmen by yourself, you get fewer enemies spawning and a gentler final boss. Meanwhile, ten people running around means beautiful chaos, larger swarms, and a meaner final foe.

I ask because, in truth, it can get hard to find people to do things with. This isn't me doing a "server population is down. WHERE IS EVERYONE?!" alarmist thing, mind you. I don't mean it that way. It's just... there are a lot of zones and the player population is usually spread pretty thin across them.

I can almost never find anyone to do Harrowstorms with, outside of seasonal events in Western Skyrim. I never see anyone doing Bastion Nymics anymore, and you want at least three people for those. The more difficult world bosses in the newer zones? Most aren't made to be solo'd, and you're usually out of luck unless a charitable soul sighs and says "fine." If you aren't pushing yourself those first two months of an expansion, you're going to be having a bad time real fast. That public group dungeon boss in Silorn NEEDS a dedicated tank to be anything other than a kiting nightmare, and how many people are running Silorn six months later? Almost no one, outside of a few people getting alts through it for the skill point and skyshard.

I like the community note of experimenting with group content like 2014 Craglorn again, in theory. The talk about adding gear-chases (back in my day, we called them gear treadmills) makes me cringe because I don't want to have to grind for Perfect CP170 kit and part of the appeal of this game was you NOT having to do that (I quit WoW because of treadmill fatigue)... but again, in theory, could be fun. You know, as long as you get it all done while people are still doing it!

Because if you don't, it'll be like the Bastion Nymic. Dead content that you'll have to beg guildies to do with you for the achievements.

So yeah, it'd be nice to see a dynamic difficulty scaling system introduced, maybe after X number of months. If you're fighting the things alone, we'll tone the mechanics and attacks down a bit to enable you to actually get it done... but you're going to get green items instead of purple items and can kiss some achievements good bye. A worthy trade-off to actually see the content after the throngs leave for greener, newer pastures.

Just my two cents.

Ingel_Riday · December 17

As a little brief addendum, I know a natural response is: "just make friends. This is a social game. Talk to people and find buddies."

Fine and dandy, but again... the population is spread across 35 to 40 zones, multiple game systems, and mutliple time-zones. A lot of us skew older and have kids and families. Many of us get event fatigue and drift off post-event do other things, logging in daily just for our rewards and an endeavor or two (I've been playing Kingdoms of Amalur. Love it). It's not as easy to snag two willing souls for thirty minutes of Nymic as you make it sound. Heck, the guild I'm in tried to coordinate a normal raid run and couldn't find enough people across itself and two other sister guilds... for the second week in a row. 1,500 people and we got 5 spots filled out of 12.

Some timed "this content is X months old. Here's a baby version for you, oh late-comer to the party" would not be remiss. :-D

Soarora · December 17

I totally agree. There’s just not enough people in every zone to do the world events. They should all scale. And as for the “just make friends” argument, I solo overland because I want to get things done. I don’t want to schedule dragging friends out of things they’d rather be doing to help me if I can avoid it.

Necrotech_Master · December 17

ive honestly never really noticed dolmens scaling, each wave typically has 1 elite and 2 trash enemies until the boss, and the bosses all appear to be the same regardless of the number of people there (hps are the same)

and yes i have gotten "named" dolmen bosses even when completely solo

dolmens never feel any harder when theres more people, it feels almost easier because stuff dies 10x faster (and i can do even less work, IE nothing outside of my companion running around)

i also did bastion nymics solo too (it goes faster with more people but it also doesnt scale to team size), usually in a group of 4 a single wing plus final boss was maybe 15 min tops, most of it is just going through all of the trash mobs before the wing boss

im not surprised on the trials, theres a bunch of guilds which seem to have a lot of people but those who only want to socialize and not run stuff, i was trying to host trial runs for one of my smaller guilds last year and we would rarely fill without use of the group finder even when there were absolutely more than 12 people online

ill sometimes join one of my other guilds normal trials if they still need fills or even pug group finder ones if i feel like running a trial for something because its a lot easier to join those in some ways

I_killed_Vivec · December 17

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

As a little brief addendum, I know a natural response is: "just make friends. This is a social game. Talk to people and find buddies."

It's more than that though. The game has gone out of its way to make you do anti-social things (surveys, treasure maps) all over the world to encourage you into forgotten zones (forgotten for a reason). I often find myself going back to these areas to do surveys... and have no reason to stay there.

Take on a harrowstorm solo? or a DLC WB? Well I suppose I could but it's a lot of effort for very little gain (and in some cases very little enjoyment).

Ingel_Riday · December 17

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive honestly never really noticed dolmens scaling, each wave typically has 1 elite and 2 trash enemies until the boss, and the bosses all appear to be the same regardless of the number of people there (hps are the same)

and yes i have gotten "named" dolmen bosses even when completely solo

I get the named foes when I'm higher level and doling out larger damage. But as a level 10 warden, the enemies were mostly two or three foes per wave and then a 2-bar generic foe. Which is nice, compared to trying Harrowstorms by yourself at any level. But yeah, the tougher dolmen swarms melt when you have ten people swarming about. It's not a difference you'd notice if you weren't running a low level alt in Grahtwood and wondering where everyone was. (answer: they've all done these dolmens a thousand times and have no reason to do them anymore, so they're elsewhere doing pursuits / endeavors / trials / dungeons) :-P

im not surprised on the trials, theres a bunch of guilds which seem to have a lot of people but those who only want to socialize and not run stuff, i was trying to host trial runs for one of my smaller guilds last year and we would rarely fill without use of the group finder even when there were absolutely more than 12 people online

ill sometimes join one of my other guilds normal trials if they still need fills or even pug group finder ones if i feel like running a trial for something because its a lot easier to join those in some ways

Truth be told, I wouldn't be trying to do a trial at all if not for the golden pursuit. They're not my thing, and the only raids I've ever done regularly were raid-finder raids in WoW. Could do them on my own time, when and where convenient, without scheduling in advance and/or having someone bark orders at me via Discord. Also, nobody wanted to collect all my loot post-raid to dole out to the team based on historic participation and "need," leaving me with bupkis and a scowl on my face. More pyramid scheme and less grand adventure, if you ask me.

Oi vei.

Necrotech_Master · December 17

the only scaling i think ive seen with dolmens is when your solo you get 1 elite and 2 trash, and with like 4 or so people i start seeing 2 elite and 4 trash, but they still die in the same amount of time or faster because of the amount of aoe people put out

if you do pug trials with the group finder, its usually not often people trade anything, theres also a good chance some of those people were the same as yourself and needing all of the gear to collect on that run

i usually try to offer stuff if people dont disband immediately when im in a pug trial group, but its rare anyone even asks me for anything when i post it in chat