I was not familiar with / did not have experiences with nor prejudice against level scaling, so experiencing it here was my first. To capture my perspective,
With OG, I had no problems / issues / complaints myself with how enemies were. I died a couple times to that tutorial red tail, I died a ton by those beginner king stags, and we needed like 3 people to tackle Cenn’s Farm red tails, don’t even mention going down the stairs yet! While that was a clear indicator to me “tuned for group content / better keep practicing till you get it right,” I do know of many that felt OG initially too hard and demanding. At least once Cenn’s Farm redtails became yellow or green, we knew it was time to venture down those stairs (I absolutely loved being able to see down the slope from Highsteppe). It did feel really nice, leveling up, getting noticeably stronger, being able to jump in and save from a distance / nearly last second a lower level player. I only leveled runemage, took me about 4 months to get to 20 (because I’m a lollygagger), and I enjoyed every moment of the journey. The fear of that stronger pocket of Almas/Infested Sprites in Narrow Orchard, getting eaten alive by Armored Wargs visualization of panic hopping the Wenderwood fence / stone gate and just that first OMFG moment of the spiders in Green Lady Forest. We traveled (airship travel safe travel! Loved the view! Wish we could have walked around the ship deck someday, and oooooo my reaction at my first glimpse of the Burning Forest from the airship!!! I looked forward to becoming strong enough to go there!) we ventured (sneaking as far as we could, scouting the area, hopefully returning with a big enough group, being level 5 and “raiding” the cactaur in the desert with like 15 other lowbies and two level-appropriate players), we quested (and sometimes had to level more to get past some fights, thank you side quest xp) we died repeatedly (WHERE AM I NOW? death is the next great adventure!), we tried again and again, and we got stronger - finally completing that mission, that milestone, and it was a milestone passed. (Compared to now, the struggle forever as if nothing is different, not even 10 levels later… but does this merit this level of difficulty? Forever? Some things, sure, but literally everything? Well, minus a couple packs of unmatched mobs, but those are few and far between. I think I can name one around Highsteppe, and uh…). I remember trying for an entire evening with a group of four and failing the donkey cart. Next day, we were able to gather a whole army, probably 20 of us (we seriously scoured the towns for people), and it was nice to watch that number decrease as our levels got higher. Who didn’t stop to help a group passing if we knew they would be too low or too few? Also went with a whole army to Snake Battlefield xD which felt so nice to be able to solo farm later, and how many lower levels did we help while we were coincidentally already there? Met this hilarious RPing guy there once.
So while the difficulty of OG mobs and group tuning didn’t deter everyone (me or anyone else that made it to endgame) it did turn away many. As we all saw, especially new people when the waves of players who all leveled together were already 20. We were hopping on, living in Guild City and running to Tradu or running to raids, or in full blown hibernation awaiting new content. Many would ask for a week in the discord trying to get a group for first dungeon until a 20 or couple upper levels could run that person through. There was indeed a big problem with retention when numbers didn’t support some of those people coming up, and we got super scarce once Reborn was announced and we knew we were gonna sit tight for a while after raids.
Defend the Realm brought the first scaling so everyone could participate for points on the kill part, and it wasn’t bad. Even better that those monsters would be spread about newb areas, but still confined to a pocket. Killing things in Wenderwood (anyone else remember that Migo kelpie sauntering around like it owned the place? xD) I met someone who’d logged in his second day to play. He helped me kill the DtR stuff, which thankfully he could with it being scaled, and then I helped him survive those armored wargs. I effectively let him fight, but I stood ready to one shot any additional mobs that may aggro, or one that spawned after the howl, and nuked whatever when his health turned red. We played for hours. It was great having that to have various levels mingle like we didn’t before - I met a good bit of new friends that way. DtR was pretty great in that it brought people together to help each other, killing and resource farming.
With the OG scaled dungeons, it felt a bit of a shock at first, we missed farming, but it worked out for the most part.
With Reborn scaling, I’m glad it was tweaked to how it is now (compared to its first beta), and I’ve tried paying careful attention to how I feel, starting as a level 1 shaman and working my way up. It is surprisingly difficult to help others or receive help, because unless someone is a super fancy top tier player, numbers of the group is mostly what matters. Even being 20+ and helping a newb “level appropriate” for Highsteppe trying to get through Sarrows Cave, after several attempts I had to call for back up, and about 30 minutes later backup came (it was about 6am my time, my new friend and both back ups called being European players). No matter what level, no matter where we go, a small group needs a superior skilled person (top 10% best of the best) or we need the numbers. I’m one person who doesn’t complain about “group tuning” since I expect that with an MMORPG (and I am available to play when there’s the highest amount of players online), so okay fine with that grit for progression, but then to go back home to Highsteppe and it’s hardly different. Everything is green, thankfully the aggro radius smaller so alone I can still traverse pretty alright, but my lower level friend is pulling everything, so it’s either try to leash constantly or, well, with two of us maybe we’ll survive. Damn, he died. I either leashed, died too, or maybe survived. Pretty even 1/3 chance for those. Okay, there’s 3 of us now… better chances for survival, better, but semi regularly at least one of us will die, especially if we aren’t playing with a tank and one of us is trying to keep the aggro focus. I’m sure we’ll get better at dodging and whatnot eventually to reach “superior skill level” to be already level 20- something but not skilled enough yet to assist a low level surviving in Highsteppe, and not around the tougher pack mobs, but the green ones. A level 6, and two level 20-somethings. Struggling. With green. It’s still weird.
The OG problems of new players between the big waves did need to be addressed, but I suspect Reborn can address that already with unmatched mobs being the heavy majority and matched mobs being scarce-to-practically-nonexistent. For starters, we’re all based in Highsteppe now anyway - opportunity to mingle. The dungeon queue being scaled has seemed to work out great so far. For a newer player only available during low population times we have other ways to level up alone now. So, if you keep dying out in the overworld and can’t find a group to help, don’t wanna keep dying, level up by dragon racing or critter capture or fishing or… and go try again. (Or with weekly/daily kill quests for xp against non-scaled, maybe even green mobs, but still quest xp and more killing practice to then level up and successfully kill what was prior failed alone). Progression with less frustration, progression with a way forward. Reborn has it.
I am super excited for the Harvest Festival and really hope events like that can be constructed similarly to Defend the Realm. Let anything related to the community events be scaled and have us band together to need each other, to accomplish a community goal.
In summation, I fully supported the idea and reasoning behind Reborn’s level scaling, and after giving it an open minded try, I myself do wish to see overworld level scaling completely lifted with maybe teensy scaled pockets guarding something super special. No personal issue with dungeon queue being scaled. No issue with community events being scaled so everyone can participate. But overworld itself… please remove. The problems of OG for new lower levels finding groups for dungeons, questing, or leveling up alone have been addressed elsewhere with Reborn (Highsteppe our center, multiple ways to level not requiring others, weeklies and dailies, scaled dungeon queue) and I do believe it will be adequate.
always felt pretty good to destroy the things that once killed you over and over