Originally posted by DarkPony

*cut* 

Sidekicking down is zone bound, while sidekicking up would have involved being in a party with some higher level player. If you now enter a zone that is intended for lower level players, you get leveled down to the level of that zone, plus a few levels, so that the content isn't to *hard*. I believe this was mentioned in one of the Yogcast vid's.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by Corehaven
*snipage*

Hmm, our discussion makes me wonder about something else;

Will the sidekicking down be determined by the area level you are in, the event level or by the party level you're in? (I'm a bit confused because it's called "sidekicking" down, i.e. the word sidekick suggests a relation with other players).

If it is determined by being part of a lower leveled party it still allows for higher leveled people to drop group and go crazy as a level 80 super hero on lower level content and take away the challenge. I.e. There will still be easy mode "boosting" lowbies if this is the case. So I hope it's area or event and not group related. Anyone know?

 

Haven't been able to find out exactly what the process will be.

MikkelB does bring up an interesting thought. Just how game changing will these unlockable abilites be and how will they function when a high level sidekicks down?

I like the idea of sidekicking down. Though sidekicking up was just something I was going to elect not to do. One of the best moments of my mmo life was when I made it from Bastok to Sandoria at level 5 in Final Fantasy XI. I like the idea of being in a dangerous place and discovering locations I am not suppose to be in yet.  

Originally posted by dontadow

I like the idea of sidekicking down. Though sidekicking up was just something I was going to elect not to do. One of the best moments of my mmo life was when I made it from Bastok to Sandoria at level 5 in Final Fantasy XI. I like the idea of being in a dangerous place and discovering locations I am not suppose to be in yet.  

I can understand the excitment in such exploration. In the days if vanillia Wow I used to run level one toons to other race starting areas or enemy teritory just for the fun of doing so.

That said though I personally would have prefered a system where I could just jump in with my mates to fight the good fight, rather than forcing them to come wuss out to help me grind through the "kill ten rats" portion of the game they've already seen. Guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by Corehaven

Originally posted by DarkPony

Yeah, side kicking down is very nice. You won't outgrow content and become a demi-god when you venture back to lower leveled areas to help others. Even though you'll still have access to more abilities and functionality so we'll have to see about how that will pan out. The same with the stat boosting to level 80 in WvW: the true 80's will probably have a lot more oomph due to many advantages other than gained through level stats. But anyway, that's not what they changed. It's the sidekicking up.

 

Right and I figure thats the way it should be.   I dont want to go play with a higher level in a zone that really in reality should be too dangerous for me.  What just because Im with a friend I get stronger or am somehow more able?  No Im not.  Im a stupid level 14 and I have no business being here. 

 

Meanwhile I dont care how good at kung fu you are.  A wild boar could certainly hurt me, and as for Mr. Kung Fu master over here....same deal.  Oh he may be able to strike some pressure points on the dumb animal or flip out of the way, but until he takes the thing down he's still in mortal danger as much as I am.  Thats the way GW2 works now, and Im all for it. 

 

Yea those 80s will have a ton of skills and that will sure help them, but a threat is a threat.  Whether Im Neo from the Matrix, or Steve Urkel, a guy running at me with a knife is still a guy running at me with a knife.  If Im not paying attention, Im dead.  Even in a level one zone. 

 

All Im saying is I feel this change makes things as they should be.  Or at least smooths things out. 

Sorry mate, I just don't agree. Literary / film example,  by your logic Frodo and the rest of the hobbits would have had to spend most of the series fighting bats, rats, and baby goblins, rather than mixing it up with orcs, trolls and Nazguls.

Now of course an MMO is not a film nor a book, but I see no reason that lower level adventures, with the help of more experienced companions, would have any more issue fighting tougher mobs so long as they didn't get a disproportionate amount of xp and loot. And since players can do EXACTLY this in the Mists at level one, don't tell me A-net has no way to balance this out properly.

So f*cking what if some players will bypass some of the content, its their choice to do so. And I'd be willing to bet quite a few of the PVP oriented players will do exactly this in the Mists anyway.

I thought people were fired up about this game because it was trying to break some of the annoying, or at least stagnant, MMO sterotypes. Why then do you think the best way they can handle this situation is by forcing higher level players to "dumb down" so they can wade through the exact same content they have already completed, in order to adventure with a friend of disproportionate level? Wouldn't it be funner for all involved for the one guy who is low level to venture out and test his metal against some snow ogers rather than get all the big boys to put themselves at a disadvantage to come help him stomp some house cats?

Well, if we're using LOTR, Frodo and his party were not "leveled" enough to be in the zone they were in, thus they snuck pass,. As a matter of fact a lot of Lord of the Rings involved them sneaking passed things. That's why I don't care for leveling up to the area. I love the feeling of being somewhere I was not suppose to be. AT no point did Frodo go head to head with an orc band in the 1st film. It would have been suicide.  

When game designing, something may sound cool, but you have to look at why you did it in the first place. The point of sidekicking was to allow you to always be able to play with your friends.   In order to enjoy a fine wine, you have to sip it, and kicking up could have encouraged drinking it like a 40 oz.  

Originally posted by Tardcore

Haven't been able to find out exactly what the process will be.

MikkelB does bring up an interesting thought. Just how game changing will these unlockable abilites be and how will they function when a high level sidekicks down?

It's was just something that struck me. I don't think it will matter that much though, because of the way the skills work. You need to unlock everything anyway, it's just the order in which players will unlock their skills that will differ from others. Plus, you can only use three of them at once, so the benefits will be in the area of flexibility. However, if sidekicking up would be allowed and it would be easier to aquire these skill points, this would give them an advantage in The Mist I suppose.

Another (minor) advantage would be the aquirement of elite skills. From my understanding you can only use those at level 30, but in one of the Yogcast vid's (I believe the one of the Norn starting area) I saw that you could purchase one of the transformation elite skills from a karma vendor. Granted, it was expensive, but if there are more of those vendors that sell elite skills in high level area's, it could be exploited too. Though this is just speculation from my part :)

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by dontadow

I like the idea of sidekicking down. Though sidekicking up was just something I was going to elect not to do. One of the best moments of my mmo life was when I made it from Bastok to Sandoria at level 5 in Final Fantasy XI. I like the idea of being in a dangerous place and discovering locations I am not suppose to be in yet.  

I can understand the excitment in such exploration. In the days if vanillia Wow I used to run level one toons to other race starting areas or enemy teritory just for the fun of doing so.

That said though I personally would have prefered a system where I could just jump in with my mates to fight the good fight, rather that forcing them to come wuss out to help me grind through the "kill ten rats" portion of the game they've already seen. Guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

How are they staying the same. There's no killing ten rats, and unless you're both the same race with the same storyline, their should be plenty anew and different at lower levels. Dynamic content in and in itself creates unique environments that will still challenge your level 70 when you're bumped down to 10.  

If you're playing with your friends and getting XP for it, and you're still challenged, it will be a different experience than any MMO out there.  As GW2 has proved, you certainly won't be killing 10 rats when youre sidekicked. 

Seems logical. While i agree sidekicking up wouldnt probably cause many problems in open pve, i wouldnt like to do a dungeon with someone who has only really played his character up to level 5 or so. Like someone before said, you can still play with friends, just do their content if they are lower level, dont expect them to do yours. 

Originally posted by dontadow

There's no killing ten rats

Not too sure about that. In the vids so far I've seen a huge number of Dynamic Event sub-objectives which seemed just as chore-like as in standard questing, up to and including escorting slow moving npc's along predetermined paths between a predetermined (and actually numbered) amount of objectives with predetermined npc spawn encounters. Etc.

i.e. The point this picture tries to bring across:

I think it is very safe (and wise) to assume that while the way questing is packaged, the way they are distributed and sometimes hidden in the world and the way you pick them up in GW2 might be novel, the actual tasks the DE's consist off won't be so revolutionary at all in most cases.

The reasoning that suddenly you can't play with your friends seem so faulty to me considering DE's aren't like the static quests in other MMO's. In other MMO's people didn't want to redo lower level stuff.  A because they would be overpowered for it in most games. B because it would be the same old same old. In GW2 leveling should never be exactly the same, sure you can run into the same DE's, but more then likely you will find that you see new ones you had missed a previous round. So GW2 gives 2 reasons to go play with your friends in lower areas. A it won't be the same old. B it will still be somewhat of a challange. 

So just because you can't take lower levels to higher level zones doesn't mean you can't still play with friends. Also are they truly friends if they refuse to level down to your content level because they already did that area? Instead they want you to go up to their level and make you play through the same content twice so to speak onece when you do it at their level and once at your own.

Now we don't know the exact reasoning it was taken out and making assumptions that it is suddenly against their philosofy is just plain wrong.

One reason simply is that people would skip whole zones if they could. It's ingrained into most players minds that higher level mobs also means better gear and more exp. For all we know Anet has found this to be true in their testing. 

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by dontadow

There's no killing ten rats

Not too sure about that. In the vids so far I've seen a huge number of Dynamic Event sub-objectives which seemed just as chore-like as in standard questing, up to and including escorting slow moving npc's along predetermined paths between a predetermined (and actually numbered) amount of objectives with predetermined npc spawn encounters. Etc.

i.e. The point this picture tries to bring across:

I think it is very safe (and wise) to assume that while the way questing is packaged, the way they are distributed and sometimes hidden in the world and the way you pick them up in GW2 might be novel, the actual tasks the DE's consist off won't be so revolutionary at all in most cases.

Well, it kinda goes back to the conundrum of event-based games. There's only so many types of events you can do, the best you can do is to try and dress them up to seem more interesting / dynamic. However, you will always either be killing something, collecting something, running something, or protecting something.

That said, I believe this was one of TotalBiscuit's criticisms on the game. Some of the DEs just have static 'kill X or collect Y' amount of whatever. It would be better if they could introduce a more random element to these events, or at the very least 'hide' the counter, so we don't know exactly how many of X or Y we are grabbing.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by dontadow

There's no killing ten rats

Not too sure about that. In the vids so far I've seen a huge number of Dynamic Event sub-objectives which seemed just as chore-like as in standard questing, up to and including escorting slow moving npc's along predetermined paths between a predetermined (and actually numbered) amount of objectives with predetermined npc spawn encounters. Etc.

i.e. The point this picture tries to bring across:

I think it is very safe (and wise) to assume that while the way questing is packaged, the way they are distributed and sometimes hidden in the world and the way you pick them up in GW2 might be novel, the actual tasks the DE's consist off won't be so revolutionary at all in most cases.

 

Of course the content of the DE's will be the same as in normal quests. You can't escape that. The whole point is that not finishing an objective can have consequences. If you don't kill a certain amount of rats the town might be over run by rats. If that NPC caravan doesn't get escorted safely a town might not get crucial goods to sustain that town. Where as in other MMO's it won't matter if you do or don't.

What other quests can you think of that aren't

Kill stuff

Escort stuff

Spy on enemy

Fed Ex 

Originally posted by dontadow

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by dontadow

I like the idea of sidekicking down. Though sidekicking up was just something I was going to elect not to do. One of the best moments of my mmo life was when I made it from Bastok to Sandoria at level 5 in Final Fantasy XI. I like the idea of being in a dangerous place and discovering locations I am not suppose to be in yet.  

I can understand the excitment in such exploration. In the days if vanillia Wow I used to run level one toons to other race starting areas or enemy teritory just for the fun of doing so.

That said though I personally would have prefered a system where I could just jump in with my mates to fight the good fight, rather that forcing them to come wuss out to help me grind through the "kill ten rats" portion of the game they've already seen. Guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

How are they staying the same. There's no killing ten rats, and unless you're both the same race with the same storyline, their should be plenty anew and different at lower levels. Dynamic content in and in itself creates unique environments that will still challenge your level 70 when you're bumped down to 10.  

If you're playing with your friends and getting XP for it, and you're still challenged, it will be a different experience than any MMO out there.  As GW2 has proved, you certainly won't be killing 10 rats when youre sidekicked. 

There is plenty of it, the only difference is that rats just don't wait at one place to get killed but you will be killing plenty of rats.

Sidekicking down is totally okay with me. I still would want to go through all the dungeons on max level, and it will still be challenging. Plus I can play with my friend who will not join on the first day, but will come later.

Good think that they did not add sidekicking up. Otherwise there would never be anything challenging for you. 

Aha, the sidekick system was originally meant to scale you up as well? News to me :)

Can't say i'm displeased with the removal of a feature i didn't know existed in the first place, they obviously had their reasons. As to the merits of such a feature in general, i personally don't mind and can certainly see the pros and cons of implementing it. However, stating that Anet's decision constitutes a complete shift or u-turn in overall design philosophy is a perhaps a statement largely reserved for drama queens.

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by dontadow

There's no killing ten rats

Not too sure about that. In the vids so far I've seen a huge number of Dynamic Event sub-objectives which seemed just as chore-like as in standard questing, up to and including escorting slow moving npc's along predetermined paths between a predetermined (and actually numbered) amount of objectives with predetermined npc spawn encounters. Etc.

i.e. The point this picture tries to bring across:

I think it is very safe (and wise) to assume that while the way questing is packaged, the way they are distributed and sometimes hidden in the world and the way you pick them up in GW2 might be novel, the actual tasks the DE's consist off won't be so revolutionary at all in most cases.

Well, it kinda goes back to the conundrum of event-based games. There's only so many types of events you can do, the best you can do is to try and dress them up to seem more interesting / dynamic. However, you will always either be killing something, collecting something, running something, or protecting something.

That said, I believe this was one of TotalBiscuit's criticisms on the game. Some of the DEs just have static 'kill X or collect Y' amount of whatever. It would be better if they could introduce a more random element to these events, or at the very least 'hide' the counter, so we don't know exactly how many of X or Y we are grabbing.

Yup, I saw that too. It was one of the rare points of constructive criticism on the game from "press" in the past weeks and I fully agree with him. They should really try to make event stages like that feel less predetermined.

No sidekicking up?  <--- good

Still sidekicking down ? <--- also good

Overall gets my stamp of approval.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by dontadow

There's no killing ten rats

Not too sure about that. In the vids so far I've seen a huge number of Dynamic Event sub-objectives which seemed just as chore-like as in standard questing, up to and including escorting slow moving npc's along predetermined paths between a predetermined (and actually numbered) amount of objectives with predetermined npc spawn encounters. Etc.

i.e. The point this picture tries to bring across:

I think it is very safe (and wise) to assume that while the way questing is packaged, the way they are distributed and sometimes hidden in the world and the way you pick them up in GW2 might be novel, the actual tasks the DE's consist off won't be so revolutionary at all in most cases.

Well, it kinda goes back to the conundrum of event-based games. There's only so many types of events you can do, the best you can do is to try and dress them up to seem more interesting / dynamic. However, you will always either be killing something, collecting something, running something, or protecting something.

That said, I believe this was one of TotalBiscuit's criticisms on the game. Some of the DEs just have static 'kill X or collect Y' amount of whatever. It would be better if they could introduce a more random element to these events, or at the very least 'hide' the counter, so we don't know exactly how many of X or Y we are grabbing.

Yup, I saw that too. It was one of the rare points of constructive criticism on the game from "press" in the past weeks and I fully agree with him. They should really try to make event stages like that feel less predetermined.

+ 1

and 

AFAIK 

Some (all?) events 'reset' way too quickly.

They should be slowed down and by alot imo.

Events impact on world should be much much longer.

Originally posted by Serelisk

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Serelisk

I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together. 

There are still plenty of ways to group together. Higher level players can go to lower level areas with friends, since it will remain challenging for them. Or they can all go PvP together.

Its better if they dont scale low level players up, that way they can focus on making higher level dungeons challenging for people with the right amount of traits and skills unlocked.

I've already addressed the dungeon part.

The playing together aspect specifically refers to people not being able to play with their friends in dynamic events in the open world because the upscaling system no longer applies to that portion of PvE.

I can't imagine it would be hard for them to design the system so that players can not apply upscaling to dungeons.

While I specifically mentioned dungeons, the same should apply to DE difficulty. I understand where you are coming from, but I think it makes far more sense for an experienced adventurer to go and help less experienced players, rather than dragging people to areas they are not ready for yet.