Are there at least _some_ areas which do not scale with my level?

Elvira · January 2018

First of all - I totally *hate* area scaling, which imho ruins all the joy from leveling up. :-P But I understand it won't go, neither they will allow us to at least turn it off so my question is:

Are there still some areas where NPC will *not* scale to my level when I fight them? PvE, not PvP of course.

Sigtric · January 2018

NPCs do not scale to your level, you scale to theirs, which is CP160, unless you are over CP160 and then at that point no scaling occurs.

But either way, nope.

Magdalina · January 2018

Mobs don't even have levels next to their names anymore if you look close. They're all, always, cp 160-scaled by default. You are scaled to them as well, but the scaling gets weaker when your gear gets too far behind your level. Out of curiosity, why do you view the scaling as a bad thing?

Elvira · January 2018

Thanks.

Does it mean that once you start champion leveling beyond CP160 you actually do get stronger than NPCs who will (as I understand it from your post) still remain CP160?

Sigtric · January 2018

Elvira wrote: »

Thanks.

Does it mean that once you start champion leveling beyond CP160 you actually do get stronger than NPCs who will (as I understand it from your post) still remain CP160?

Yep.

So from character levels one to 50 you start with a pretty big health and resource buff to help compensate for your lack of class/weapon/etc skills. As you level up this buff is reduced some to make up for the fact that your character is getting stronger. There's a bit of a wonky spot in the 40s I think where the reduced buff makes you feel a little squishy, and as you see your stat pools go down it gives the perception of not being as strong.

When you hit CP 160 and beyond, those CP points will start to cause you to get so strong that eventually regular overland enemies will feel very weak and you will melt them quickly with a DPS character.

Elvira · January 2018

"Out of curiosity, why do you view the scaling as a bad thing?"

To me the joy of leveling is to see how my character gets stronger. Like... NPCs who could kill you in few hits now get killed by me in few hits. Scaling takes this all away. It feels to me like a pointless grind now for just "flashy effects". I do lot more damage (in numbers), I have more mana, stamina, hp, tons of spells... but... in the end... they hit just as hard as before, because the same old NPCs have all that now much bigger too. Or the effect is quite neglible. The character does not get stronger and there is no place to see it how "bad-ass" it became.

I understand this makes all zones interesting to fight but well... for me the above is more important. It's a... psychological thing I'd say. :-(

SirAndy · January 2018

Sigtric wrote: »

NPCs do not scale to your level, you scale to theirs, which is CP160

The difference is important ...

Magdalina · January 2018

Elvira wrote: »

"Out of curiosity, why do you view the scaling as a bad thing?"

To me the joy of leveling is to see how my character gets stronger. Like... NPCs who could kill you in few hits now get killed by me in few hits. Scaling takes this all away. It feels to me like a pointless grind now for just "flashy effects". I do lot more damage (in numbers), I have more mana, stamina, hp, tons of spells... but... in the end... they hit just as hard as before, because the same old NPCs have all that now much bigger too. Or the effect is quite neglible. The character does not get stronger and there is no place to see it how "bad-ass" it became.

I understand this makes all zones interesting to fight but well... for me the above is more important. It's a... psychological thing I'd say. :-(

I understand where you're coming from. However I doubt you'd enjoy most of pre-One Tam ESO as well as everything on your level was equally easy whereas you couldn't really go to zones above or below your level if you wanted to, your xp would be severely diminished and with level different >5 levels(I think even in the upper side? Not sure, I know you would get crap xp from higher level mobs) you'd get literally nothing. There never was anything quite like Skyrim giants that one-shot you at level 1 and then you gradually moved up to one-shotting them in turn. Well there were original vet zones which were challenging and then Craglorn for open world but that's been heavily nerfed.

You still can, however, see your character progress. It's just...different. The numbers per se may not change that much but other things will. You will unlock new skills - AoE for faster dealing with multiple enemies, higher single target spammables, shields/heals to defend yourself, etc. At level 15 you'll unlock bar swap. You will learn to use food and potions. You'll acquire better gear(especially true after cp 160 since before that you quickly outlevel your gear anyway), higher in level, quality and simply of a set more fitting your playstyle. And, most importantly of all, you'll acquire more understanding and knowledge of the game(hopefully this part will work better with the advisor system they're going to introduce with next dlc because currently it's pretty lacking for new players).

Out of challenging things you can pit yourself against currently there're World Bosses. They are soloable, all of them. But it can be quite challenging on a low level toon

Some of them can even be quite challenging on maxed out ones, and the difference is noticeable.

Also, once you hit vet levels(as in cp, which happens right on reaching level 50), you'll gain access to vet tier of the content - vet dungeons, vet trials, vet DSA and vet Maelstrom arena. These are significantly higher in difficulty than other content and you can see how your char progresses there pretty well.

KnightfallZX2 · January 2018

Elvira wrote: »

"Out of curiosity, why do you view the scaling as a bad thing?"

To me the joy of leveling is to see how my character gets stronger. Like... NPCs who could kill you in few hits now get killed by me in few hits. Scaling takes this all away. It feels to me like a pointless grind now for just "flashy effects". I do lot more damage (in numbers), I have more mana, stamina, hp, tons of spells... but... in the end... they hit just as hard as before, because the same old NPCs have all that now much bigger too. Or the effect is quite neglible. The character does not get stronger and there is no place to see it how "bad-ass" it became.

I understand this makes all zones interesting to fight but well... for me the above is more important. It's a... psychological thing I'd say. :-(

I understand you and can relate. I remember playing Diablo and a friend with a high level character joined me to help out. He had 10+ enemies attacking him at the same time, and his health bar barely moved. He just stood there, showing off. I'd like to have done that in ESO, as it gives you that sense of accomplishment, and pretending to be a god within the game.

That said, I found this scaling to be okay in ESO, as it has already allowed me to play alongside high level players, and actually be useful, instead of standing there on the sideline. Plus, having the ability to go where I please is a perk too.

Pros and cons, right?

Kraynic · January 2018

It isn't totally level/CP, either. A lot of your character's power/usefulness will come from little incremental increases of passives. How many skill points you have unlocked are an indicator of potential character power just as much as total CP. In ESO, so many things tie together that it isn't just level and then CP total, or just the exact skills/morphs you have and use, or just the passives you have unlocked. Everything works together in ESO, and the more of all of these elements you have, the more powerful your character will become.

Nestor · January 2018

Another thing to keep in mind, is your Buffed at low levels, and that buff wears off as you level up. So, unless your developing your character, you see a noticeable fall off in power as you level up. This encourages you to do two things, pay attention to your gear and to your build as you unlock more skills. So, once the training wheels come off at CP160 it becomes a different game if your not ready for it.

Also, traditionally, your doing overland content, zone quests, etc while leveling. You don't get into the Group and End Game content until later. Zone and overland content is easy, Groups, Trials and PvP of various types is much more difficult. So your not really challenged until later in the game.

SydneyGrey · January 2018

There is some content that's harder. The DLC dungeons tend to be harder than the regular dungeons, plus there are "veteran mode" and "normal mode" 4-player dungeons, and you can have a "hard mode" in veteran dungeons as well to make them extra difficult. (Usually reading a book near the last boss will make it "hard mode".) Craglorn is also more difficult than other areas, because a lot of it is meant for groups. If you solo it, it'll be difficult unless you're a very good player with some good armor sets.

Loc2262 · January 2018

Zenimax introduced this as part of the "One Tamriel" update, to help players of different levels do content together. Before scaling, the beginner zones became more or less useless to higher level players, since for kills of mobs 5 or more levels below you you didn't get XP. And the other way round, dungeons would get scaled to the group leader's level, i.e. if you had a level 50 leader and three level 10 players, the latter would have a serious problem.

So yeah, the global CP160 scaling thing has advantages and disadvantages. The apparent "getting weaker" as you level up indeed feels a bit weird. But IMO the advantages of being able to visit all zones right away and do stuff with all levels of players outweigh the disadvantages.

I still remember when I first got the Orsinium DLC, and made my first contact with harpies in Wrothgar. They wrecked me really good.

Now, even a level 3 char fresh out of Coldharbor or Vvardenfell can go there and kill them easily.

davey1107 · January 2018

You’re right. A pro to the old system was that I liked to leap ahead and play ridiculously hard monsters. I could challenge myself spending a half hour trying to kill a level 40 skeever on my new level 5 toon where I was dealing 200 damage and the skeever had 300,000 hit points. And would deal 10,000 damage back, lol.

That silliness aside, I could level WAY FASTER on the old system. Level 20 monsters would be worth, say, 1,000 xp and level 40’s would be worth 1,800. As long as you got 10% of the damage in on a kill you’d get full credit. So my friend and I used to gear up our level 20s and take them to level 40dungeons. Between us we’d have enough firepower, and we’d earn xp 2-3x as fast.

However, the gigantic con was that once you outleveled a zone it’d become boring and stupid. If I needed to back track to Auridon, my level 40 would just one shot everything and you wouldn’t get xp for it. Now all areas stay playable...trust me, it’s much better.

There are areas where the monsters are sort of kind of not scaled...those are the undaunted dungeons. The dungeons have a sort of unpublished progression where some are set to be harder. For example, a flame atronach in City of Ash II hits harder than one in Elden hollow. Then when set to vet the monsters are scaled WAY up. They won’t have levels over their heads, but they’re hard enough so you can test your power against them.

Also, you’ll see the power gains you’re looking for more in the champion point system than the base leveling system. As you add CPs you will slowly increase your offensive and defensive power, and you’ll be able to watch your damage creep up and monsters that were hard become easier. I mean...it’s a slow grind, but you’ll still be able to see yourself grow more powerful.

Loc2262 · January 2018

davey1107 wrote: »

That silliness aside, I could level WAY FASTER on the old system. Level 20 monsters would be worth, say, 1,000 xp and level 40’s would be worth 1,800. As long as you got 10% of the damage in on a kill you’d get full credit. So my friend and I used to gear up our level 20s and take them to level 40dungeons. Between us we’d have enough firepower, and we’d earn xp 2-3x as fast.

Are you sure about that? In the old system, you wouldn't get any XP if the monster was - I think it was - 5 levels below or above you. Or was it just below? I certainly remember that there was this thing with "missed attacks" if the monster was too far above you, making combat additionally much harder.

Also, with a recent patch they introduced a way more frontloaded XP curve, i.e. you need much less XP for lower levels. With the current system, you can kill any mobs in any overland zone (except for Craglorn of course) so quickly, it should be faster to level now.

Even if monsters back then would give more XP if you went to a too high level zone, killing them would take much longer. So it should be more efficient now where everything is scaled from the beginning.

EDIT: Then again, I don't grind anymore now to level up new chars. I do the main quest, a few random normal dungeons each day, normal Maelstrom Arena once or twice at level ~20 (makes an impression on the newbies having that title early on

), and go thru most of the standard faction zones collecting overland skyshards, dolmens, public dungeons and wayshrines. That's much more "interesting", and by the time I'm done, I'm level 50, have enough skill points (and lorebooks if magicka), level 7-8 in Fighters Guild, level 3-4 in Undaunted, and most wayshrines unlocked.

davey1107 · January 2018

@Loc2262

Being a player from a Final Fantasy background and childhood I’m a total nerd for learning all math and mechanics, lol.

In the old days, the xp system for monsters was that for lower level monsters you would outlevel them and eventually stop earning xp off them. We used to always say “about five levels” because the mechanic wasn’t a firm five levels, it was a hidden monster difficulty value. Some monsters would drop off at five, some at 6-7.

If a monster was a higher level than you, you needed to do ~10% of the total damage on the kill to earn xp. People would get confused and think there was an outleveling system for higher level monsters because they’d go to hard zones and not do enough damage to earn the xp.

The old system allowed a semi-exploit that would let you work to vet faster, especially in the days between champion points being released and One Tam. (Because non-vet alts who had CPs were stronger). We used to take toons around level 15 to The Vile Manse in Reapers (scaled to level 38-40, I think). If 2-4 players worked through it and were organized, you’d get xp on most every kill and the total gains would be huge. You could get 5-6 levels off on psijic run. If you did this all the way to vet, always playing harder zones, it was faster. If I was playing solo, I’d go tail a higher level player in a hard zone. It was pretty common to get Tagalongs following you.

HOWEVER, once at vet you then needed to work up your stupid veteran rank, and that was as high as 16 ranks before they abolished that system, which was 16 x 850,000 xp = 13.6 million xp, which WAS NOT FASTER AT ALL. Lol. We had systems for this too. My friend and I had a full set of purple exploration armor. With this gear and psijic, we’d open a zone and do nothing but discover every location. Each zone was worth ~300,000 xp this way.

Loc2262 · January 2018

@davey1107, have an Insightful!

davey1107 · January 2018

@Loc2262 Thanks! Lol, I’m not sure that’s deserved for utterly archaic mechanics knowledge.

But it did make me recall how the game used to work, and to the OP’s original point it’s hard to express just how big an improvement the One Tam scaling system is. Yes there were some trade offs, but the benefits are fifty times greater - being able to go anywhere, being able to play with friends at any level, being able to revisit old zones, so you can complete areas in any order.

I’m an old enough gamer I grew up on those open world rpgs with leveled zones where you had to earn your street cred to move into a new area. I'm nostalgic for that too, but I think games have permanently moved away from that philosophy, at least in social games like eso.

Loc2262 · January 2018

@davey1107 You're welcome! I found it very interesting, getting some insight about how game was way before my time.

This is my first MMO and I started playing in June 2016. So I luckily never had to do the terrible VR grind, but still know a time before One Tamriel when you had to switch zones every 10 levels when leveling up a char (if not using your tag-along-the-big-boys method), and could go to other faction zones only with champion chars.