Blizzard Explanation on Battle for Azeroth Mob Scaling

Posted 2018/08/24 at 8:11 PM by perculia

developer Q&A yesterdayGearig Up in Battle for Azeroth

Blizzard

Well geared toons from the end of the previous expansion have always had a very easy time in the first few levels of a new expansion. The scaling isn't broken, it's how the scaling should work. The only way for this to not be an issue is to remove scaling altogether. And it's a design choice that the benefits of scaling outweigh downsides like this.

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Comment by PasuzuMy only concern this expansion is that yeah, world mobs scale up, but I feel like they scale up much faster than the rewards from WQs, I'm 327 ilvl, and still only getting 315-320 rewards from WQs, so unless I get lucky with warforges and titanforges, there's no meaninful reward from WQs aside from rep.Comment by m4gg0tI did feel the scaling differences going from 119 to 120 and suddenly the mobs felt harder to kill and i was talking more damage, but once i started to gear up to ilvl 300 it became easier. Maybe something could be some to smooth out that one last level as i didn't feel this stark difference leveling in legion. Other then that i agree with everything Ion has said.Comment by xBloodySinIf it really was about "keeping areas relevant to the players" from a player's point of view, scaling could simply be a toggle, like War Mode - if you want "relevance," turn it on, otherwise if you just want to get done with boring and repetitive World Quests fast to go do something else, leave it off. But this was never about relevance, only about artificial longevity.Comment by couchpotato2013We had level scaling in legion. What’s different now is that we have level scaling and ilvl scaling as well (once you hit 300 ilvl). Empirically we maybe stronger than 110s now but what was the difference between month one 110s vs mythic geared groups fighting archimonde, and for every other expansion?

My guess is that Blizzard has intentionally designed 120s to have a lower floor so as to help against the enormous power creep that occurs over an expansion.Comment by DebrashaviIf it really was about "keeping areas relevant to the players" from a player's point of view, scaling could simply be a toggle, like War Mode - if you want "relevance," turn it on, otherwise if you just want to get done with boring and repetitive World Quests fast to go do something else, leave it off. But this was never about relevance, only about artificial longevity.Comment by ArchimtirosMy only concern this expansion is that yeah, world mobs scale up, but I feel like they scale up much faster than the rewards from WQs, I'm 327 ilvl, and still only getting 315-320 rewards from WQs, so unless I get lucky with warforges and titanforges, there's no meaninful reward from WQs aside from rep.Comment by Sephiroth018Yes, let's try again to justify that as a fresh 120 you just get beaten up by by more than 1 or 2 normal mobs. Are they even able to think normally? Getting to 120 means gearing up, ok. But how to gear up if you can't really beat anything in a reasonable amount of time?
For example, those who quest completely throug one area before going to the next will be 120 after 2 areas + the 2 visits to the other island. They don't have world quests enabled yet, because they are not at the required reputation level with the 3rd faction and getting there is more than a bit of work if you don't have the gear for it (which only comes from world quests and dungeons, and dungeons don't give that much loot and have extremely long queues for DDs).Comment by JetLightWolfMy only concern this expansion is that yeah, world mobs scale up, but I feel like they scale up much faster than the rewards from WQs, I'm 327 ilvl, and still only getting 315-320 rewards from WQs, so unless I get lucky with warforges and titanforges, there's no meaninful reward from WQs aside from rep.Comment by Sephiroth018If it really was about "keeping areas relevant to the players" from a player's point of view, scaling could simply be a toggle, like War Mode - if you want "relevance," turn it on, otherwise if you just want to get done with boring and repetitive World Quests fast to go do something else, leave it off. But this was never about relevance, only about artificial longevity.Comment by fatgunnI did feel the scaling differences going from 119 to 120 and suddenly the mobs felt harder to kill and i was talking more damage, but once i started to gear up to ilvl 300 it became easier. Maybe something could be some to smooth out that one last level as i didn't feel this stark difference leveling in legion. Other then that i agree with everything Ion has said.Comment by couchpotato2013I did feel the scaling differences going from 119 to 120 and suddenly the mobs felt harder to kill and i was talking more damage, but once i started to gear up to ilvl 300 it became easier. Maybe something could be some to smooth out that one last level as i didn't feel this stark difference leveling in legion. Other then that i agree with everything Ion has said.Comment by Wombat62Yes, let's try again to justify that as a fresh 120 you just get beaten up by by more than 1 or 2 normal mobs. Are they even able to think normally? Getting to 120 means gearing up, ok. But how to gear up if you can't really beat anything in a reasonable amount of time?
For example, those who quest completely throug one area before going to the next will be 120 after 2 areas + the 2 visits to the other island. They don't have world quests enabled yet, because they are not at the required reputation level with the 3rd faction and getting there is more than a bit of work if you don't have the gear for it (which only comes from world quests and dungeons, and dungeons don't give that much loot and have extremely long queues for DDs).Comment by JaceDraccusYes, let's try again to justify that as a fresh 120 you just get beaten up by by more than 1 or 2 normal mobs.Comment by GomrinAt lvl 120, I started dying a lot. It’s getting better now with higher gear levels, but I really hope they going to do some adjustments or it won’t be much fun to level up some more chars. It is ok to do it the hard way once or twice but after that it gets tiresome to die every five minutes, especially with the less armoured classes.Comment by WhaleMobilesorry but that is not how its working , I keep seeing players say this but its pure hyperbole. I still was able to take on and kill pulls of up to 10 normal mobs when I went to the third zone to get the required rep, Questing at fresh 120 was not slower , I did not die more. Rares and elites took a little longer to kill but were still not a problem to solo , in fact they went down quicker when I was soloing them than if others were joining in.

All the whinging is coming from those who hate scaling , who hate a challenge , who want to just one shot everything because it makes them feel " stronger" so they grossly exaggerate what is actually happeningComment by JaceDraccusYes, let's try again to justify that as a fresh 120 you just get beaten up by by more than 1 or 2 normal mobs. Are they even able to think normally? Getting to 120 means gearing up, ok. But how to gear up if you can't really beat anything in a reasonable amount of time?
For example, those who quest completely throug one area before going to the next will be 120 after 2 areas + the 2 visits to the other island. They don't have world quests enabled yet, because they are not at the required reputation level with the 3rd faction and getting there is more than a bit of work if you don't have the gear for it (which only comes from world quests and dungeons, and dungeons don't give that much loot and have extremely long queues for DDs).Comment by mysticalosThere is a HUGE bump in difficulty at fresh 120. It's not undoable but definitely noticable. For a tank for example you literally go from having 50% DR to having like 34%, just like that. Instantly you're taking a lot more damage. Now, the problem with the drop isn't the 34% it's actually the fact that they basically designed the curve really really wrong. you stay fairly strong up until 119 then just drop at 120 until you get that ilvl from 277 to about 300. They could probably fix it at this point by just changing the 119 rewards from offering 277 gear to offering 285 so you can be a little tougher when you hit 120. They could also weaken you more at 119 because they are giving you better gear at 119. Smooth out the rough curve.

As for world scaling beyond that for ilvl. I think they should adjust health scaling slightly to account for fact not everyone plays dps in the world. if you are adjusting mobs around dps inflation, what happens to the healer that feels mobs getting harder to kill as they gear.Comment by 1717213This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by vertigo12By the end of the day whatever route you take with questing, the rewards of gear would likely end up only for cosmetic purposes once you find an upgrade.

They should somehow include a nifty reward when you are in the process of making your wy to max level specifically specifically reward from that zone apart from max level content rewards and drops.

Thus your choice of doing such zone would be significant.Comment by stickilerWe had level scaling in legion. What’s different now is that we have level scaling and ilvl scaling as well (once you hit 300 ilvl). Empirically we maybe stronger than 110s now but what was the difference between month one 110s vs mythic geared groups fighting archimonde, and for every other expansion?

My guess is that Blizzard has intentionally designed 120s to have a lower floor so as to help against the enormous power creep that occurs over an expansion.

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