[CONCEPT] Reverse Battle-Leveling

Ixtyr · June 2015

A Quick Disclaimer:

What I'm proposing here is not something I expect to have happen in this game any time soon, if ever. I fully understand that implementing any new feature into the game takes time, effort, planning, and resources to pull off - so I'm certainly not expecting nor "demanding" anything here. It's simply a suggestion that I've mentioned privately (and publicly on my podcast) to a number of individuals who have all seemed at least somewhat interested in this feature.

Additionally, I am aware that something at least somewhat similar to this has been suggested in relation to future DLC-zones. While my suggestion here still might apply to that, my major concern is in regards to the earlier, core leveling experience built into the base game, and all content that currently exists on the live servers.

I also recognize that this is not exactly a truly "original" idea - it exists in other games, and I'm sure it may have already came up at least once on these forums previously. I just want to voice my thoughts & support for it here, and I am doing so.

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INTRODUCTION

So, I hate "alts". I really do. I know plenty of people who play multiple characters, I've even done so in the past in other games, but I just don't enjoy it. Achievements are not account-wide, so I never want to have a potential situation where my "alt" has an achievement my "main" doesn't. Plus, with any class being able to (theoretically) fill any role with decent success, the point in having to play extra characters seems even less desirable.

In ESO, I play a Bosmer Nightblade in the Daggerfall Covenant. I've played that character since the first hour of the first day of Imperial-Edition "early access" back in March 2014, after having extensively beta tested in the months prior to this game's release, and settling on that class and race combination. I'm happy with my character, and as I stated above, I don't like to play any "alts".

"Well, Ixtyr, that's great - what's the point," you say? Here goes:

All throughout the past year or so, I've had a wide variety of friends come into the game, starting fresh, or some of my current ESO buddies decide to roll an "alt" character - and I want to play with them. I really do. I just can't bring myself to roll an alt, much less seriously level it, so I'm somewhat out of luck.

If I decide that I want to tag along as my friend is playing his/her new Level 27 character, and I'm playing my Veteran Rank 14 main...well, frankly, I kill everything entirely too quickly, and the experience is hardly enjoyable for myself nor for my low-level buddy. It's just not fun.

The same goes for dungeons - yes, ZOS has done a great job at allowing all instances to scale down (or up) to whoever is the group's leader - but that doesn't solve the issue I'm speaking of either. If three of my friends want to play alongside one of our low-level guildmates in their first run through Spindleclutch, we have two options - we can scale everything to VR14, and carry our Level 15 friend through it, hoping that by some miraculous combination of skill, healing and luck that they don't die too much along the way - or we can scale everything down to Level 15...in which case, we basically poke the mobs & bosses and they fall over, dead. Neither of those options lead to a fun gameplay experience.

The only exception to this rule? PvP. Because PvP scales everyone up to VRs, and the upcoming changes that Brian announced earlier this month will build on that system within Cyrodiil, my Level 34 friend can come in and at least be moderately useful, have some success, and enjoy himself in an epic open-world PvP setting. Disregarding any balance issues that come within PvP, that's awesome, and I'd really like to see more of an ability to do things like that in other areas of the game.

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PROPOSAL

Here's my proposed solution.

Voluntary, Reverse Battle-Leveling.

Allow me, on whatever character I happen to be playing, to voluntarily scale my character's statistics (and gear) down to a lower level of my choosing. Don't limit it to only dungeons, but allow it for any zone I happen to be in.

Let me choose to rescale my character to Level 14 when I'm running around in Glenumbra, so that I'm not instantly one-shotting all of the mobs.
Let me choose to rescale my character to Level 16 when I'm running around in Bangkorai, so that I can challenge myself to see whether or not I can beat mobs 20+ levels stronger than me.
Let me choose to rescale my character to Level 40 when I'm running around in a Cadwell's Gold area, just because I'd get a kick out of the challenge.
Let me choose to rescale my character to Level 25 when I'm playing in Glenumbra with my friend's Level 14 character, so that I can help them get through something without sucking all of the fun out of it for the both of us.
Or, let me choose to stay at my Veteran Rank 14 when marching around in Stros M'Kai, valiantly slaying the Level 3 Skeevers that plague the land, just because I want to watch giant super crazy ridiculous single-attack damage numbers fly across my screen.

The point would be to allow me to play my one, main character, without being - at least in some ways - penalized by being unable to play level-appropriate content with my guildmates because I don't have an alternate character near their level. It would also give players an option to entertain themselves by challenging each other to see who can last the longest again a VR5 zone boss when they're scaled to Level 30. Perhaps an odd example, but you get the point. And this extra challenge would be fully optional - if you don't want to participate, then don't.

A system very much like this one exists in several other games - the two biggest ones to come to mind are Guild Wars 2, and RIFT. Both handle it differently - Guild Wars 2 forces your character to be scaled to the "appropriate" level for a particular area. The player has absolutely no control over it - even if you're Level 80, when you return to a starting zone, you're nerfed down to Level 3. RIFT, on the other hand, makes the entire system 100% optional - any player can "Mentor" their character down to any level between Level 10 through Level [X], where "X" is 5 levels below one's actual level (example: a Level 45 character can scale themselves anywhere between 10-40).

The latter is the kind of system I'm proposing here. I don't want players to be forced into a system like this, but rather to give them the option to utilize the tool if they so desire. If you want to take a team of four VR14s into an instance that you scaled down to VR1 to complete the Veteran Pledge for the day, so that you can breeze through it without much trouble, I'd be happy to let you still do that. What I'm asking for is the option to also do the inverse - instead, let me grab two of my Trials buddies, and take a new VR3 guild recruit to do the Veteran Pledge with everyone's characters scaled down to his/her VR3.

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TL;DR:

There's not really a good TL;DR for this, but this is basically my point: rather than solve the "everyone's characters are different levels" problem that arises when doing content by letting you scale the content to your level, let us scale our level to the content. It's already happening in ESO's PvP - so let's see it applied elsewhere, too.

Midnyte64 · July 2015

Sounds like an amazing idea, but it would all depend on how they implemented it for me to give my seal of approval or denial...because you can have an amazing concept execute in a way that makes all the effort in implementing it completely pointless.

Ixtyr · July 2015

Midnyte64 wrote: »

Sounds like an amazing idea, but it would all depend on how they implemented it for me to give my seal of approval or denial...because you can have an amazing concept execute in a way that makes all the effort in implementing it completely pointless.

I totally agree with you on that point - the thing is, this entire system has literally been done before.

RIFT's Mentor system gave me hours upon hours of extra gameplay on my main character. When my friends started playing, I didn't have to roll an alt to play with them. I could go quest with them at Level 10, with my maxed character, but remain at a level appropriate to the content if I so chose. Literally took two clicks to go from decked-out Level 60 character to decked-out, but less OP, Level 15. I could run lower content with my friends! That was huge.

The kicker? The fact that I could log out for two days while work kept me busy, and they could keep playing, get 6 levels higher, and I wouldn't have to "catch up" on an alt. I just rescaled myself.

The Mentoring system in RIFT is by far THE most underrated, underappreciated, and underacknowledged system in any major MMO since, well, basically forever.

ZOS would have to be careful and methodical in the way they did this, but with the DLC-zones coming, and the pending removal of Veteran Ranks that will end up causing a wide variety of balance changes to the game, I don't see why this wouldn't be a great addition to put in around the same time.

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A guy can dream, right?

Sentinel · July 2015

I support this fully. I always want to play each zone like I play a TES game, run around, explore, kill things, etc. Given that each zone becomes practically meaningless after you outlevel them, being able to be scaled down to each zone would be a nice way to revisit old zones as not a ride in a themepark, but as part of a world that each character has a place in.

Acrolas · July 2015

It seems like a lot of unnecessary work when a majority of players will just choose the default level progression anyway.

Yes, it would be nice to revert back to a young, dumb college student every time you set foot on a college campus, but for the most part, experience means leaving things behind for new challenges and opportunities. You're supposed to outgrow the easy content. Otherwise we'd all be taking naps every day in a Kindergarten classroom.

Gidorick · July 2015

I'm of mixed minds on this. I agree that we need a "reverse battle-level" option for ESO but simply giving us the ability to choose what level we want to be leveled doesn't seem to be in keeping with Elder Scrolls. I think the automatic leveling is more in keeping with the systems that are found in the core series. I would like the mechanic of being able to level to the group leader. If you wanted to play with your level 14 friend as a VR 14, you should be able to scale down to a level 14 if they are the group leader.

This leveling, however, could be attached to the Battle Level toggle.

Battle Level Toggled OFF:

Player always plays as the level they currently are and receives XP appropriate to their level.

Battle Level Toggled ON:

Player Levels UP or DOWN in Cyrodiil
Player who is alone Levels DOWN to Zone max level +1 (gains leveled level's XP)
Player who is grouped Levels DOWN to Group Leader +1 (gains leveled level's XP)
- If player IS group leader, they level down to Zone max level +1

Players aren't forced to level down, but if they do, they still feel powerful and players won't have to keep adjusting their level if they move from one zone to another. This will create a more natural game experience while allowing players to play at a viable level in all zones.

Couple this with a "difficulty slider" and man I think we would have a wonderful system to allow us to truly play how we want.

That being said, I wouldn't complain if ZOS instituted a "choose what level you want to play at" mechanic. Having the ability to play FAR below a Zone's level is something that would be really fun and this would be easiest to maintain with a level-selection type mechanic.

I can see where a level-choice would be an effective way to handle the implementation of a leveling down mechanic, and where it would be a better mechanic than an automatic level toggle, I just don't feel like it's right for THIS game.

smtdbplus · July 2015

I think this was implemented in Rift, "mentoring", to lower the character 's level.

Ixtyr · July 2015

Acrolas, I get what you're saying, but I feel like that's a poor analogy. You'd still be downleveling with all of your same skills, gear, enchantments, etc., so you'd be more powerful than another "legit" Level 10 player. It'd just be a way to give you the option to downlevel so the content is relevant to you again.

It seems a bit less "important" because of the lack of true dynamic open-world content or events in ESO zones, which is a large part of what makes this a big deal in other titles, but the system itself would still provide a big benefit to a number of people. And to say that "some people wouldn't want it or use it" as a reason not to implement it, especially when it's a simple feature that had absolutely no impact on your own gameplay, would be rather unfair, no?

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Gidorick, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of it having to be "scale self to group leader", but I also feel like that's an unnecessary restriction. The same goes for having to be scaled to a certain specific level according to the zone.

I'm not sure why you think it doesn't fit in a TES title, either. I mean, just look at Skyrim. You could go, early on, and try to fight a giant at a low "level". Once you get a lot stronger, killing those giants is a lot easier, but it's still fun to try to kill one when you're clearly outmatched. It's an open-world game, and you could run off to do something well before you were ready. But you could still do it. To me, this sort of a leveling system would make more sense, since you're offering the player the option to use a tool that can help them to play the game in a way that they enjoy it, without causing any issues for other players' gameplay experiences.

And besides, don't you want to see if that Skyrim giant can still clobber you across half of The Rift in ESO?

Acrolas · July 2015

Ixtyr wrote: »

especially when it's a simple feature

But it's not. It would require discussing, testing, and re-calculating mobs, loot, experience, and instances for each quest and each level so that you can "trick" the game into letting you repeat something once or multiple times.

We've seen the reaction to vet levels, which were a massive re-calculation of quests and levels with the intent to add hours and replay value to the game. But even they were simplified to just 14 new levels across 13 or 14 zones.

I don't predict a good reaction to a game mechanic built around the novelty of being under-leveled. Higher-level enemies will still consistently dodge you and you'll get diminishing returns on enjoyment each time you play a quest no matter what level you are.

Tedious isn't a condition easily fixed.

Ixtyr · July 2015

I meant simple by design, not that it wouldn't take time and effort to implement.

The developers are already in the process of removing Veteran Ranks, which requires a rebalancing of zones, crafting, gear, and stats. If they're doing that already, implementing something like this wouldn't be that much more to ask for, since they're doing it anyway.

Regardless, I don't expect them to add this any time soon, if ever, but it'd still be really sweet to have it in the game.