I get you op, a person who starts today can be just as strong as a person who started 2 years ago. There end game system is *** off, and they don't much seem to care what the masses want.

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Malacthulhu wrote: »

haven't really said how it destroys progression for you and on what level ypu consider an mmo to be an mmorpg. So I have to ask whats the point of your thread?

I explained why I posted above. If there is no power progression and everything scales to match where you're at, it's no longer an RPG system. It's something else. It's an absolute difference, and effects every other area of the game. What is the point of levels if there is no difference between a level 1 area and a level 50 area?

I didn't explain that because it's all been said before and the same counter arguments will now be proffered with the same disdain and disagreement. Fair enough, and hey ***. For many of us it's a deal breaker.

Levels =/= progression.

They create an artificial sense of progression. A level 1 zone, in a game without scaling, isn't any more difficult than a level 50 zone. The only difference is that you can't play in the level 1 zone anymore once you hit level 50 because it becomes too easy.

Honestly, One Tamriel saved ESO. Sure a small percentage may have preferred the previous scaling and left, but ESO added many times more people to the game BECAUSE OF the removal of 'leveling'; I know I definitely like ESO more after One Tamriel than I did before. So to the OP... your complaints fall on deaf ears at ZOS because they know that an overwhelming majority of players prefer the game the way it is now... they're not going to lose a majority of players just to try and win back a tiny minority.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

lvl scalling has nothing to do with I being an RPG. Just that not all games are for everyone. why they are all different.

Levels are absolutely a core mechanic of RPGs, and always have been. There are solid mathematical reasons for that. As someone who has worked on a game that tried (and failed) to build a level-less system, I'm more certain of that than ever. Also, if you played any of the table top systems that tried to base everything on skills, you would understand the absolute difference. If you don't have levels, you have something else that you call by another name that essentially does the same thing. There are many reasons for that, most of them tedious and pragmatic, but they are fundamental and unavoidable.

Even ESO has levels despite trying it's hardest to be skill-based. That tells you everything.

Regarding GW2 which some have mentioned, scaling is the number one reason I stopped playing that too. It felt awkward and dissatisfying for the same reasons.

Back to scaling though. The biggest tell that its in inelegant solution is that if you don't level your gear you actually get less powerful. That's an absurdity brought on by the math. You are running on the spot with scaling, but the numbers still go forward, which creates the situation where if there is a discrepancy between gear and character the results go down. How in anyone's imagination is that contextually satisfying? It's absurd, and counter intuitive. As a designer I would have rejected the solution out of hand just based upon that one outcome (ignoring all my other objections).

I do understand the positive reasons others like scaling. I'm not ignoring them. I just feel the trade-off is a bad one overall.

HOWEVER...

Thanks to everyone for all the replies. Some of them have convinced me to push through to the zero point (Max level/CP 160) if I can endure, and make my summation there. Again, it's a completely counter-intuitive absurdity to have to do that, and if I was Zenimax I'd be looking very hard at ways to reduce the impact of such an outcome of my systems. But I'll give it a go as there's nothing else worth playing right now.

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

lvl scalling has nothing to do with I being an RPG. Just that not all games are for everyone. why they are all different.

Levels are absolutely a core mechanic of RPGs, and always have been. There are solid mathematical reasons for that. As someone who has worked on a game that tried (and failed) to build a level-less system, I'm more certain of that than ever. Also, if you played any of the table top systems that tried to base everything on skills, you would understand the absolute difference. If you don't have levels, you have something else that you call by another name that essentially does the same thing. There are many reasons for that, most of them tedious and pragmatic, but they are fundamental and unavoidable.

Even ESO has levels despite trying it's hardest to be skill-based. That tells you everything.

Regarding GW2 which some have mentioned, scaling is the number one reason I stopped playing that too. It felt awkward and dissatisfying for the same reasons.

Back to scaling though. The biggest tell that its in inelegant solution is that if you don't level your gear you actually get less powerful. That's an absurdity brought on by the math. You are running on the spot with scaling, but the numbers still go forward, which creates the situation where if there is a discrepancy between gear and character the results go down. How in anyone's imagination is that contextually satisfying? It's absurd, and counter intuitive. As a designer I would have rejected the solution out of hand just based upon that one outcome (ignoring all my other objections).

I do understand the positive reasons others like scaling. I'm not ignoring them. I just feel the trade-off is a bad one overall.

HOWEVER...

Thanks to everyone for all the replies. Some of them have convinced me to push through to the zero point (Max level/CP 160) if I can endure, and make my summation there. Again, it's a completely counter-intuitive absurdity to have to do that, and if I was Zenimax I'd be looking very hard at ways to reduce the impact of such an outcome of my systems. But I'll give it a go as there's nothing else worth playing right now.

re that bold - i think you are perhaps speaking for RPGs and actually meaning a subset of RPGs.

Story-based RPGs or RPG campaigns do not have an unavoidable need for leveling or even progression. Your character need not be unavoidably or pragmatically more powerful than when you started the game at the middle of the game or the end of the game.

have you really never played in successful campaigns/games where the game attempted to reflect genres other than ones where character power-up progression was the goal?

An RPG resolving around say mystery genre could be simply a case of finding clues, solving connections and so on with no character "level" or "power" gained at all. Did Ellery Queen or Nero Wolfe or even most 007 movies or series show "leveling up", "progression in power" or anything like the "did my combat numbers flash across the screen higher" scoring?

Similarly, horror can be a matter of similar solving mystery and survival, not "leveling up".

Did Lucas McCain or Matt Dillon or Jack O'neill (two Ls) "level-up" often or even at all during their 5 year, 20 year and 10 year (not counting movies) respectively campaigns?

if you think about it, a whole lot of genres used as a basis for RPGs are not always fundamentally and pragmatically dependent on levels and level progressions and their lead character's numbers going up dramatically or at all during the campaign. Even some of the more combat oriented one like say super-heroes, there is not a fundamental and unavoidable on anything like a steady trickle up of power that can be seen as levels. For decades at a time since the 50s or 60s and beyond many of the core iconic supers did not regularly level up(or even graduate high school) for sometimes decades at a time - relying on the same set of powers and talents and the occasional "one-off-trick" to get by again and again - with typically nothing like "leveling" except perhaps when a new writer took over.

Sure, RPGs can plaster old-school D&D level/Xp-gain from low to high scaling but do not have to and in most any supers-RPG i ever played or GMed they included sections on running alternative advancement or non-progressive games.

once played in a summer campaign set in mythic-europe where the characters never leveled up or gained more numbers and points and plusses. they started quite capable and worked to achieve a number of personal; goals (excise their demons) while moving through a bigger external plot and resolving that as well. It fit well the "flavor" of the setting/genre where an ingrained belief was that what happens in the world of man is just preamble for the eternity to come so the gaining of wealth, fame and all that jazz took a distant second to the personal "quality of soul."

But even for the sub-set of RPG games/campaigns where significant up-tick in capabilities are **chosen** in design to play a significant, ongoing role in the game, the 1T implementation did not change that beyond the most superficial "what number do i write on my character sheet" sense. The 50/50/50 plays out much like the 20/20/20 and the 50/20/50 is tougher than the other two. (level/gear/foe.)

@STEVIL you're not talking about RPGs now. RPG systems by definition have power curves of character development, which traditionally have included levels. Let's not get into a semantic discussion about what RPG actually means. In games it refers to a certain type of system and gameplay.

@TheMaster you're still grinding. Actually if the power curve in ESO only really begins post max level/160 CP, the grind is even more than in the traditional non-level scaling version. Only the grind doesn't imbue any power until that point. It's a very strange trade off.

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

@STEVIL you're not talking about RPGs now. RPG systems by definition have power curves of character development, which traditionally have included levels. Let's not get into a semantic discussion about what RPG actually means. In games it refers to a certain type of system and gameplay.

@TheMaster you're still grinding. Actually if the power curve in ESO only really begins post max level/160 CP, the grind is even more than in the traditional non-level scaling version. Only the grind doesn't imbue any power until that point. It's a very strange trade off.

Re the bold - like i said, i believe you are thinking a subset of RPGS that you want to consider referring to RPGs as a whole - then now following up by defining what it means "in games" and i am sorry but you are wrong.

By that i do not mean that no RPGs have or utilize power curves of character development, but instead that the latter is not a necessary or fundamental part of something to be called an RPG.

But again, your circular reasoning is flawlessly circular and self-referential - once you accept as axiom, as premise, as definition that RPG must have power curves of character development then obviously any game which fails at that as an RPG must be flawed.

but again, the key is, again once you scratch beneath the surface, the same thing you fault ESO 1t scaling for (weaker if you dont up-tick your armor/gear to keep up against equal foes) existed before 1T and even way way way back to the blue books and hardbacks... or did your fighters in 1979ish not upgrade your armor and weapons from 5th level to 15th level? Let me clue you in, against quite a few 15th level monsters at that time, your 15th level fighter could do NO DAMAGE if the sword wasn't a high enough plus - so hey - maybe even with ESO scaling 1T the impact of lower tier gear is not nearly as dire as bad as it was in those RPGs.

The more you keep highlighting what you define as "an rpg" the more i suspect your definition and experience is derived from a much more recent and thus much more limited perspective. No idea for sure, but, for sure the "sense of progression" lost when you don't upgrade your gear in 1T is nothing compared to what it has been over the course of RPGs taken as a whole. hard to imagine your sense of advancement would survive being unable to do damage at 15th as readily as you did at 5th.

Rainraven wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Malacthulhu wrote: »

haven't really said how it destroys progression for you and on what level ypu consider an mmo to be an mmorpg. So I have to ask whats the point of your thread?

I explained why I posted above. If there is no power progression and everything scales to match where you're at, it's no longer an RPG system. It's something else. It's an absolute difference, and effects every other area of the game. What is the point of levels if there is no difference between a level 1 area and a level 50 area?

I didn't explain that because it's all been said before and the same counter arguments will now be proffered with the same disdain and disagreement. Fair enough, and hey ***. For many of us it's a deal breaker.

Levels =/= progression.

They create an artificial sense of progression. A level 1 zone, in a game without scaling, isn't any more difficult than a level 50 zone. The only difference is that you can't play in the level 1 zone anymore once you hit level 50 because it becomes too easy.

People have really forgotten how much that sucked. If you went to Stonefalls or Glenumbra after level 30 or so, everything including dolmen bosses died if you breathed near it. So you had no reason to go back there, ever. All the content behind you was over and dead. And when progressing a character, even if you did no side quests, by time you did the zone's ultimate quest you could roll everything with your eyes closed. It was horrible. World bosses were a joke. Entire zones were pretty much empty, all the time.

One Tamriel made the game different, not easier. It's the best thing they've ever done, and if it means people can't go back and roflstomp everything or go forward and feel amazing for killing something ten levels higher, that's an acceptable price for a true open world.

This. So much this. One Tamriel brought me back. Before I was usually 4 to 5 levels ahead and had to jump ahead to gather the right materials. It was awful.

One Tamriel is not perfect but it is the best change ZOS has done so far in my opinion.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

lvl scalling has nothing to do with I being an RPG. Just that not all games are for everyone. why they are all different.

Levels are absolutely a core mechanic of RPGs, and always have been. There are solid mathematical reasons for that. As someone who has worked on a game that tried (and failed) to build a level-less system, I'm more certain of that than ever. Also, if you played any of the table top systems that tried to base everything on skills, you would understand the absolute difference. If you don't have levels, you have something else that you call by another name that essentially does the same thing. There are many reasons for that, most of them tedious and pragmatic, but they are fundamental and unavoidable.

Even ESO has levels despite trying it's hardest to be skill-based. That tells you everything.

Regarding GW2 which some have mentioned, scaling is the number one reason I stopped playing that too. It felt awkward and dissatisfying for the same reasons.

Back to scaling though. The biggest tell that its in inelegant solution is that if you don't level your gear you actually get less powerful. That's an absurdity brought on by the math. You are running on the spot with scaling, but the numbers still go forward, which creates the situation where if there is a discrepancy between gear and character the results go down. How in anyone's imagination is that contextually satisfying? It's absurd, and counter intuitive. As a designer I would have rejected the solution out of hand just based upon that one outcome (ignoring all my other objections).

I do understand the positive reasons others like scaling. I'm not ignoring them. I just feel the trade-off is a bad one overall.

HOWEVER...

Thanks to everyone for all the replies. Some of them have convinced me to push through to the zero point (Max level/CP 160) if I can endure, and make my summation there. Again, it's a completely counter-intuitive absurdity to have to do that, and if I was Zenimax I'd be looking very hard at ways to reduce the impact of such an outcome of my systems. But I'll give it a go as there's nothing else worth playing right now.

We are all entitled to our opinions and while this does not make ESO any less of an RPG by any means, that does not preclude you from not liking it.

EDIT: the current system of leveling a character currently present in modern MMOs is very different than the earlier MMORPGs. Many players prefer the old system over what we have in MMOs today. It is all really opinion of what we like and dislike.

Absolutely... nobody has to like anything. I think the first thing i said in this thread was something like "OK fine enough..."

but when one posts not just "i dont like it" but " It's no longer an RPG" and bases that on the false sense of progression changes **on a discussion board** one ought to expect disagreements on those classifications.

While i find it more amusing than anything else, perhaps the poster should check out something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game
before declaring that "RPG systems by definition have power curves of character development" as that concept is not involved in any of that discussion about what an RPG is. While i would certainly agree that many RPGs have this, an ESO still does, i would also point out that in many if not most of those cases, it was more of a ruse than an actuality because the adversaries "scaled" along with you (as the Gm or the system quests keep the game challenging by the same scaling.) Scaling has been baked into many if not most or close to all RPGs at the DNA level since day-one as has the "get better gear as you go up or suffer for it" too.

the poster does not have to explain or support why they dont like abc or def, but when they say something is or isnt an RPg or pretend the scaling now is significantly different than pre-1T citing armor outleveling as a point to support, those are subject to both scrutiny and refutation.

i can say i dont like huspuppies but like cornbread and be fine.
but when i then say its because i dont like foods made from cornmeal and i dont consider cornbread to be such a food, i invite the counter discussion i get for that "observation" being posted to a discussion board.

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

@STEVIL Your referencing is wrong I'm afraid. Original D&D characters only went up to level 10. That was maximum power, apart from gear. In fact, there could only ever be one level 10 Druid in any one version of the D&D world. To get to level 10 you had to defeat the current level 10 in combat (a fantastic mechanic BTW).

I've played most RPGs since before there were CRPGs, and many of the early and current CRPGs and MMOs. Everything from the original Eye of the Beholder series, Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, and many smaller long forgotten games. I played most of the first MMOs (though I missed the MUDs), and many of those since. So when I say an RPG system is a certain way, I'm referring to the long legacy of the genre. But RPG refers to a very specific thing (or set of things) - especially when you are talking about games. One of those is levels.

You can't redefine that. You can add to, or remove from it, or change it in some way. But then you are talking about something different - which is fine. But it's no longer RPG.

Anyway, once a discussion goes down to semantics, it's already over I've stated my reasons why I don't like scaling and think it is an inelegant solution that works directly against and undermines the very systems the game is made of (though I understand why it's done). We can agree to like different things.

Since my referencing kept mentioning the 78-79 time frame and the hardbacks as well, AD&D was the reference points. Again you seem to want to draw your perspective from a sub-set (OD&D) and then expand its specific limitations outward beyond its scope. that seems a repetitive notion.

RE the bold - again you can decide that for your opinion an RPG has to have levels and every game of any sort that does not have levels or the power prgression you liek is not an RPG but that does not make you right, anymore than me deciding cornbread is not a cornmeal based food makes me right.

i can choose to say "2 is not an integer" because "all integers must be higher than 5" and just because many or most or the vast majority of integers are higher than 5 that does not make my new definition of integer right, does it?

in a gaming context, RPG stands for Role Playing Game not Rank Progression Game though perhaps not for everyone. I would suspect more would confuse it for Rocket Propelled Grenade in a gaming sense than Rank Progression Game.

You dont have to like ESO and i dont have to like cornbread and neither of us has to like 2 as the lame-ass integer tryhard it really is, but just cuz we feel these things does not mean we get to just redefine things to feel better about our peculiar preferences?

maryriv wrote: »

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Just want to let you know that level scaling has made this game unplayable for me. I get that a lot of people like it, and that's a good thing. It just destroys any progression for me. It's no longer an RPG.

I wish I'd remembered that before buying back into the game (after leaving it during the trial). My fault. If the game ever reverts, I'll be back, as it's beautiful and compelling in all other regards.

May I have your things?