it's a double edged sword;
I like it because you can go anywhere.
i don't like it, because everything is easy now.

Not sure what it has to do with Bots, they would exist with or without.

Level Scaling has not worked for this game, in my opinion.

Before Veteran Ranks were phased out in favor of Champion Points, traveling to each zone, leveling, progression, they all meant something. There was an incentive to visiting these zones that didn't evolve around farming or grinding all over the place. I get that there was grinding back then anyway, but unlike now to level you had an excuse to go to these zones and level up through question. Even with the grinding zones, you could only gain so much xp after exceeding a certain level so you'd have to move along anyway.

Now though, you can grind in one spot in one zone and be able to get access to the top tier gear and content that generally requires it. It's become much more effortless and now there's very little incentive to visit and explore other zones besides farming and traders, and besides being for show, most achievements in the game are meaningless besides being for show.

I can understand that the various parts of the old system turned many new players away from ESO, but what's the point about worrying about the short-term if you're not thinking about the long-term? The people who quit the game early most likely looked at the game, saw something they couldn't do, said "**** it" and quit the game. These people didn't give the game a proper chance. Those who did continue through the game and started to face proper veteran content did give the game a chance.

There is, however, a bigger problem at play here beside Veteran Ranks and Champion Points. The problem Zeminax is having is that it's failing to think long term. It's alright opening the game for new waves of players, but it's the long term player that keeps the game going and funding Zeminax.

Remember Morrowind? Morrowind attracted a lot of new players, many of which I invited to my guild. You saw more people running around, you saw prices surge as more people wanted the newest stuff. Many of those same players I recruited during the Morrowind hype have since failed to appear online for a good few months now and I'm having to boot them from my guild to make up space. The server is less populated and less people appear to be running around. It's an example of the problem Zeminax is facing. Think short-term but don't consider the long-term.

With the hype over there are less of these new players around as the enjoyment for the content has receded, and with the enjoyment over many long term players have quit too. "Morrowind is over, now what do I do that I haven't already done?"

Zeminax has put themselves through a lot of trouble trying to cater to EVERYONE. It's doesn't seem to be working as it leads to conflicting priorities which, in the end, helps no one but hurts everyone!

Whether you support the new system or support the old one, it's clear that the player base is losing its patience. Whether it's to do with nerfs, PvE conflicting with PvP, Veteran Ranks vs Champion Points, content, bugs, whatever the issue is, unless Zenimax sorts it's priorities and starts thinking long-term, the game will fail.

It's good and bad....

Good:
I can now go anywhere I like. I can see the whole world and do what I like for quests and challenge myself by taking on fights I feel would be a fun challenge if I want.

Bad:
The "high level rat"/"high level normal" effect. We just can't out-level anything. It's like how things were in TES3 Morrowind where things may have scaled somewhat but you always exceeded them eventually while in TES4 Oblivion it was all your level so everything was difficult. I love making areas safe for me to go back to either through clearing, with phased status, or just being overpowered, but I can't anymore. I also enjoy being able to out-level something to complete it when I normally can't at level; it may take longer but should be allowed so we can all eventually get the most desirable cosmetics. This is especially frustrating with the new hard-mode-only Sanctified Silver skin from Asylum Sanctorium.


I would have implemented level scaling to allow players to scale up to anything they want to do but also let them out-level it as enemies would still have a set level. More specifically, City of Heroes had a system where players of different levels could group and scale themselves to each other, either higher player to the lower level or the lower player to the higher level, so that everyone could play together anywhere while content was still a specific level. That worked better than any system in any mmo since and they did it first. Funny how nobody learned the correct lessons from that since.
I'm tired of the "high level normal" syndrome that developers think makes games fun. It just makes them more unbelievable and boring.

wolfxspice wrote: »

some zones should have been left unscaled, and even had their difficulty increased, this would have given new players something to work towards, and high lvl players a overland zone that wasn't a complete steamroll.

No. All zones eventually become a steamroll for high enough players, as they should be.
They would eventually be out-leveled by those high level players anyway as every cap eventually increases, even champion points.

My idea of scaling up players to every area, like currently, and then letting them still out-level it is better.
Otherwise we get the unbelievably-overpowered-threatening-high-level-"oh my god it's so scary"...rat. Like, why do we have skeevers that can still damage us at champion 660 and actually be a threat if there are enough of them? Why are their max level generic bandits?
I'm rather tired of this effect in games. They need enemy replacement with bigger and cooler and scarier enemies at high levels, like how the game Tibia handles enemies.