ESO needs a level downscaling system!

xarguideb17_ESO · August 2014

Several friends have joined ESO.
They are having trouble starting the game solo. They die a lot and get frustrated.
I don't want to make another new character each time a friend joins ESO, but I would love to group and help them quest and tackle the group dungeons with one of my higher level chars.
That would work perfectly, if there was a system to downscale my level to my friend's, so I'd have smaller stats and skills would do less damage.
I could help show those people that ESO is not only about soloing.
There is fun in grouping.

This would be an investment for ESO, because it would help get new players involved in the community.
I hear there are similar systems in other mmo-s.
ESO needs this!

bertenburnyb16_ESO · August 2014

another problem is the phasing
a friend of mine also started eso a while back, I thought I support him with some healing & such, but well most of the time he dissapears because I already did the quests so there is no way of playing together if you already completed said content.
there should be an option to just join with a partymember even if you already completed said content.

xarguideb17_ESO · August 2014

Yes. However they have promised to work on the phasing problem at least.
I haven't heard devs talk about level downscaling.

bertenburnyb16_ESO · August 2014

another reason why donwscaling is needed in my pov,
replayability of dungeons and trails, now you can only do dungeons while your lvl-apropriate, otherwise its just stupidly easy, and also with upper Crag comming and cap increasing to VR14, that would mean the current trails will be ... useless, since it will be alot easyer, but also will drop lower lvl loot.
so scale down, but keep loot equivalent the the actual player lvl

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · August 2014

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

so scale down, but keep loot equivalent the the actual player lvl

On silly me, until you wrote that I thought you wanted a challenge, when all along it;'s about loot, as usual.

No, ZOS shouldn't do this.

On-level at level 20, say, is a damned sight easier than on-level 50 due to there being far more complex battle mechanics the higher you go, so doing what you ask would make end-game gear far easier to get .. which I guess is what you're after?

Phantax · August 2014

xarguideb17_ESO wrote: »

Several friends have joined ESO.
They are having trouble starting the game solo. They die a lot and get frustrated.

You're kidding right (damn hopefully even trolling) They are dying a lot in the early stages of the game? This has to be the most watered down, newb friendly MMO I have ever played. You could fart and kill half a dozen nearby mobs !

If however you really are being serious and your friends are getting frustrated at dying so often I recommend you tell them to re-evaluate if ESO is the game for them ! ?

shadowz081 · August 2014

The three cardinal rules laws of surviving in ESO:
-Block
-Interrupt
-Don't stand in red circles or fire.

Obey these three laws and you will do fine. Don't obey them and you will find yourself dying again and again until you rage quit and complain on the forums how stuff in beginner zones are too OPed and need to be toned down...At least until you know what you are doing

Dyabolikal · August 2014

Phantax wrote: »

xarguideb17_ESO wrote: »

Several friends have joined ESO.
They are having trouble starting the game solo. They die a lot and get frustrated.

You're kidding right (damn hopefully even trolling) They are dying a lot in the early stages of the game? This has to be the most watered down, newb friendly MMO I have ever played. You could fart and kill half a dozen nearby mobs !

If however you really are being serious and your friends are getting frustrated at dying so often I recommend you tell them to re-evaluate if ESO is the game for them ! ?

Wow...... not everybody has the same skills as you. Though I am not sure how downscaling would really work, I would like to be able to help my friends play this game the last thing I would want to do is recommend they play another game because they die a lot.

Phantax · August 2014

Dyabolikal wrote: »

Phantax wrote: »

xarguideb17_ESO wrote: »

Several friends have joined ESO.
They are having trouble starting the game solo. They die a lot and get frustrated.

You're kidding right (damn hopefully even trolling) They are dying a lot in the early stages of the game? This has to be the most watered down, newb friendly MMO I have ever played. You could fart and kill half a dozen nearby mobs !

If however you really are being serious and your friends are getting frustrated at dying so often I recommend you tell them to re-evaluate if ESO is the game for them ! ?

Wow...... not everybody has the same skills as you. Though I am not sure how downscaling would really work, I would like to be able to help my friends play this game the last thing I would want to do is recommend they play another game because they die a lot.

It's nothing to do with 'my skills' but if these people are getting frustrated then they are not enjoying the game. After all this is a game and meant to be enjoyed, if they cannot manage that in the early stages they definitely won't later on.

R1ckyDaMan · August 2014

problem is, there would need to be new content added to lower zones to give me a reason to take my downscaled character back, just to help friends with a quest or 2 does not really warrant it.

Pseudonym · August 2014

There are some real jerk comments in here, but I'll move past those and share my thoughts on down-scaling.

I'm in a similar situation. I have two real life friends who play with me, though we all have different working hours, and they work more hours than I do; so I've rushed ahead, and they're taking their time.

The problem isn't when we're playing on our own, it's when we actually want to play together. The quests aren't group friendly, but I hear they're working on that, and I absolutely demolish everything in their zones, so it's hardly worth me tagging along.

What I would suggest for you and your friends is to do what we did in the end. We went to a low population Cyrodiil campaign and did the PvE content there together; all of the Skyshards, books and quest hubs. In Cyrodiil it doesn't matter what level you are, because you're all scaled to the mob level; or near abouts. Not only that, but you all get loot for your level. It's pretty much what you're asking for.

TLDR; That being said, I'm all for a scaling system in the outside world, though I don't think the scaled down player should get loot or experience.

Dyabolikal · August 2014

Phantax wrote: »

Dyabolikal wrote: »

Phantax wrote: »

xarguideb17_ESO wrote: »

Several friends have joined ESO.
They are having trouble starting the game solo. They die a lot and get frustrated.

You're kidding right (damn hopefully even trolling) They are dying a lot in the early stages of the game? This has to be the most watered down, newb friendly MMO I have ever played. You could fart and kill half a dozen nearby mobs !

If however you really are being serious and your friends are getting frustrated at dying so often I recommend you tell them to re-evaluate if ESO is the game for them ! ?

Wow...... not everybody has the same skills as you. Though I am not sure how downscaling would really work, I would like to be able to help my friends play this game the last thing I would want to do is recommend they play another game because they die a lot.

It's nothing to do with 'my skills' but if these people are getting frustrated then they are not enjoying the game. After all this is a game and meant to be enjoyed, if they cannot manage that in the early stages they definitely won't later on.

True though I understand your point. I played dark souls and died alot and got frustrated but I enjoyed the game, I played and got better and the final parts of the game were not as hard as I remember the first parts of the game and because of that a felt accomplished.

If I was told don't play that game because I'm a newb and getting frustrated, ultimately they are robbing me of the chance to feel like I accomplished something, I'm sure you see where I am getting at here. Thats why I said what I did.

bertenburnyb16_ESO · August 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

so scale down, but keep loot equivalent the the actual player lvl

On silly me, until you wrote that I thought you wanted a challenge, when all along it;'s about loot, as usual.

No, ZOS shouldn't do this.

On-level at level 20, say, is a damned sight easier than on-level 50 due to there being far more complex battle mechanics the higher you go, so doing what you ask would make end-game gear far easier to get .. which I guess is what you're after?

no its about the challange, but also to give people an incentive to do them,
why would anybody run the VR12 trails (except once for completion), if you can do the VR14 trail and get VR14 drops, same with dungeons, wy would anybody do the starter dungeons again? this would probably be better if there were specific sets dropping per dungeon, or specific style-sets (but as they announced it at Quakecon there will be some sort of way to get equipment in the visual style based on the boss you defeated, and Undaunted armor set, but then again, what use would a drop from a starter dungeon have to an end-lvl player, it could be cool looking, but youre never gonna wear a lvl 15 helm at VR12-14)

shadowz081 · August 2014

IMO if they are having this much trouble doing stuff in ESO, the OP should round them up, bring them to a place where mobs of 2 and 3 consistently respawns and teach them how to fight that way or make a lv10-15-ish character in another faction and have short dues with your friends. Shouldn't take more than 30min to see an improvement.

All you need to teach them is when to block attacks, when to bash the npc in the face and rolling out of AoE damage. And maybe a bit of resource management. Stuff like the ability to cast through block is also a handy tip to give to a new player struggling, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you what to have your friend end up as one of those block+impulse spammers. At least not before they reach VR and have the grasp of the basic mechanics.

Stranglehands · August 2014

Completely useless suggestion now, given that the game has been released, but I reckon they should have made the missions more like in the single player games and included some missions that you would have a reason to skip for roleplaying reasons. They very much shy away from missions having a straightforwardly negative outcome or leave you regretting what you've done for most of the game, but having missions where you, for example, are doing something obviously unsavoury and criminal that can't end well (like the shipwrecking mission in skyrim, or the molag bal mission) would give you a nice way to deliberately skip missions to avoid going over-level and not feel like you're being forced into skipping past parts of the story, like what's currently happening with my dragonknight

vyndral13preub18_ESO · August 2014

As long as the downscaling is something i control, with like a check box or something. I don't want to be forced into downscaling when i just want to move through an area quickly. I didn't like it in GW2, i pretty sure i wouldn't like it here.

And yeah no, loot should be the level of the mobs you are killing, not your level.

Chelos · August 2014

When I read the topic I must admit I was like "oh no!" but thinking about it, I would love to support low level players and help them throug tough areas (even though I have a hard time thinking of any that felt hard to me, and I'm certainly not a good player)

I wouldn't need any scaled loot (not even upscaled one) but that's just me.

MercyKilling · August 2014

Chelos wrote: »

When I read the topic I must admit I was like "oh no!" but thinking about it, I would love to support low level players and help them throug tough areas (even though I have a hard time thinking of any that felt hard to me, and I'm certainly not a good player)

I wouldn't need any scaled loot (not even upscaled one) but that's just me.

This right here.
Pretty much every MMO that has come out since..oh....2006(maybe even earlier, I'm not sure) has had encounter scaling and some kind of party level equalizing feature right from the start.
Why on earth this wasn't a basic feature of the game is beyond me. Forget about difficulty, what about the main draw of MMO's to begin with? PLAYING WITH FRIENDS.
You just can't do that currently.

Phasing keeps you from staying together....the fighter's guild and mage's guild and main storyline quests are all solo only....it's as if they WANT you to not play with anyone until the later levels....and most people that -I- know say "Screwthatthankew." Several of them play such dismal titles as "Champions Online" and "Neverwinter". Games put out by the worst MMO maker in the business, Craptic...err...Cryptic games. Why? Because GROUPING IS EASY THERE.

I can't stress it enough. There seriously needs to be a complete reworking of how grouping functions in this game. It's one of the very few things completely wrong.

KhajitFurTrader · August 2014

Sooo... suppose there would be a downscaling system someday, where the invitees get scaled down to the level of the party leader. Why shouldn't this work across alliance boundaries as well?

Friend of mine recently started playing. Knowing the other TES games, he wanted to roll a Bosmer archer; but since the Explorer's pack isn't available any more, this meant he had to start playing in the AD. My characters are all in DC or EP, and while I did invite him to the guild, I can't play with him, show him the ropes, etc. So I had to roll a new character in AD, which I'd rather not have to do - given our different playing schedules, there will soon be level differences anyway, and it distracts me from playing my main.

So, if there's ever going to be a tutoring system with a downscaling feature, it needs to work across all alliances as well.

dennissomb16_ESO · August 2014

I would like a level down system simply for playing with lower level friends and friends alts. Unfortunately phasing is a killer to grouping and truthfully I see no way that ESO will ever be able to change it to a useable level. However we can always hope

Divinius · August 2014

For anyone wondering how down-scaling would/could work, I'd refer them to the system used in Final Fantasy XI online. They called it "Level-Sync" and it was one of the most well-thought-out systems for level scaling I've ever seen in any MMO (one of the few things that game did really, really well).

Basically, if two or more people (with different levels) were in a party together, the party leader had the option to enable/disable "level-sync" which would reduce the levels of all party members to match the level of the leader. It would not raise the level of anyone else in the party that was lower lever than the leader, only reduce higher-level players.

Any gear worn by the reduced-level players would be scaled appropriately, and the player could still receive xp and loot equivalent to that reduced level. The level restriction was automatically removed if the player left the party (or left the area the party was in) so the reduced level couldn't really be exploited.

Player skills would NOT gain xp, so there was that small drawback to being level-synced, but that just helped to further prevent exploitation.

Overall the system worked incredibly well to allow people of different levels to play together, without really being easily exploited for other purposes. There was even a 30-second delay for enabling/disabling the sync, to prevent people from being able to quickly de-sync in a panic situation to save their butts.

If ESO could implement something of this nature, along with a system to allow players to play in the same phase with others (perhaps also a "phase-sync" system to force all players to the party leader's phase?), it would virtually eliminate any issues people would have with partying with their lower-level friends.

In the long run, I think the implementation of systems like this will be mandatory for ESO, as the game grows older and attracting new players becomes a necessity for the game's survival.

cromica81_ESO · August 2014

It's called a mentor system and it should be included in every mmo.

Gigglesnort · August 2014

I agree with @KhajitFurTrader.

They should also make it that since all your characters (account) automatically join the guild(s) you are in, they should be able to quest with guild members even if they are different alliances.
It doesn't make sense to allow different alliance to be in the same guild(s) but not quest together.
What's the sense of being in a guild if you can't join them on adventures and what guild are you loyal to since you can join 5 of them and if you are different alliance can battle against them in pvp and "spy" using guild chat on the movements of each other.

cromica81_ESO · August 2014

Gigglesnort wrote: »

I agree with @KhajitFurTrader.

They should also make it that since all your characters (account) automatically join the guild(s) you are in, they should be able to quest with guild members even if they are different alliances.
It doesn't make sense to allow different alliance to be in the same guild(s) but not quest together.
What's the sense of being in a guild if you can't join them on adventures and what guild are you loyal to since you can join 5 of them and if you are different alliance can battle against them in pvp and "spy" using guild chat on the movements of each other.

They already made the faction you pick mean nothing with veteran levels and cross faction guilds what's one more way I guess.

Blkadr · August 2014

Oh my god the phasing! Why would they do that? I need help in some areas from a real life friend who can't help me because he already did that quest. What happens when he comes to help me with a quest and then tries to do it on his own game, does that break his game then?

Nestor · August 2014

Dyabolikal wrote: »

Wow...... not everybody has the same skills as you. Though I am not sure how downscaling would really work, I would like to be able to help my friends play this game the last thing I would want to do is recommend they play another game because they die a lot.

Easier Solution, make them a full set of armor and weapons for their level. My first two toons who did not have crafting built up only had a couple of pieces of armor and a weak weapon. Made the game much harder than it needed to be. However, now, I make a set of nice white armor for L4 Toons, then when they get L6, a nice set of Green (usually with all Training Traits) and that carries them until L9 or L10. However the game is much easier like this.

billp_ESO · August 2014

I liked how City of Heroes did it; the game kept track of your levels and what skills you picked, so if you wanted to go back to lvl 20, for example, you would have the skills you picked at lvl 20.

UrQuan · August 2014

Divinius wrote: »

For anyone wondering how down-scaling would/could work, I'd refer them to the system used in Final Fantasy XI online. They called it "Level-Sync" and it was one of the most well-thought-out systems for level scaling I've ever seen in any MMO (one of the few things that game did really, really well).

Basically, if two or more people (with different levels) were in a party together, the party leader had the option to enable/disable "level-sync" which would reduce the levels of all party members to match the level of the leader. It would not raise the level of anyone else in the party that was lower lever than the leader, only reduce higher-level players.

Any gear worn by the reduced-level players would be scaled appropriately, and the player could still receive xp and loot equivalent to that reduced level. The level restriction was automatically removed if the player left the party (or left the area the party was in) so the reduced level couldn't really be exploited.

Player skills would NOT gain xp, so there was that small drawback to being level-synced, but that just helped to further prevent exploitation.

Overall the system worked incredibly well to allow people of different levels to play together, without really being easily exploited for other purposes. There was even a 30-second delay for enabling/disabling the sync, to prevent people from being able to quickly de-sync in a panic situation to save their butts.

If ESO could implement something of this nature, along with a system to allow players to play in the same phase with others (perhaps also a "phase-sync" system to force all players to the party leader's phase?), it would virtually eliminate any issues people would have with partying with their lower-level friends.

In the long run, I think the implementation of systems like this will be mandatory for ESO, as the game grows older and attracting new players becomes a necessity for the game's survival.

This system sounds like exactly what I'd like to see. The only thing I would add to it is the ability to queue in the group finder tool for lower level dungeons, and have it so that the level scaling automatically occurs in such a case when you find a group. This would solve the problem I always have where I've out-leveled a zone's group dungeons by the time I get around to wanting to find a group to run them...

xarguideb17_ESO · August 2014

Lots of good comments here. Keep your ideas coming! Hopefully ZOS will show again that they read and listen the community and make it's dreams come true in ESO

Thanks to Pseudonym. It really does seem like the best solution for the moment - grouping in Cyrodiil with friends who are much lower level.

Martinus72 · August 2014

ZOS has stated clearly that they are working on both, reducing phasing making grouping for quests easier and scaling dungeons to group leader.
Holy moly this impatience and rage of modern mmo crowd is unbelievable...
Someone mentioned mentor system, how long it took to implement it in Rift for example, this game is still in infant state as for mmo so take it easy people for your health sake

xarguideb17_ESO · August 2014

Scaling dungeons to group leader is not what we're asking for in this thread. In fact, that's a change I don't really care of, because
I do dungeons at appropriate level (unless they are broken, like Blackheart Haven is atm, I'm several level past it now).
However, if this comes with a replay value to dungeons, then it's very nice indeed.

This thread is not about impatience and rage, but ideas about level scaling.

Sure, you can go through life taking it easy all the time, if you like. But if you don't make yourself audible, then you won't be heard.

I don't know a better place than this forum to post ideas to ZOS about ESO.