Mentoring

[Flex]

Saw this on wow.com

Cataclysm may also eventually include a system that allows players to scale down their character's level in order to help newer players. The heirloom items unveiled in Wrath of the Lich King already scale with a character's level, so adjusting them to suit a downgraded character is already part of the design. Cataclysm will go one step further and replace individually purchased spell ranks with a scaleable system that allows a single ability to grow along with a character. Scaling down levels probably won't be possible when Cataclysm is released, but it's a feature that will be coming eventually and should help players of differing levels adventure together more easily.

Healer who healed me throughout all of Burning Crusade has a level 70 tanking Paladin. I'd love to be able to downgrade one of my healers and begin paying him back.

[Arcand]

Sweet.

[lythac]

Will be interesting if these scaled groups can enter raid instances.

[Phonic]

Wow this is a great feature

Hope you can easily go back and forth!!

[Arcand]

Wow this is a great feature

Hope you can easily go back and forth!!

There have been reports that level 85s using the mentoring feature to run the Deadmines are remaining at level 20 afterwards and have to level up again.

This is intended.

[Chicken]

Wonder if they'll allow you to use it to run instances at their intended level even if you don't have a lower level player to help. Would be an interesting way to allow people to experience some of the older content while sort of on a level it's supposed to be experienced at. Sounds kind of fun to be able to go through some of the old raids without steamrolling them due to the sheer power of being higher level.

[Amirya]

Wow this is a great feature

Hope you can easily go back and forth!!

There have been reports that level 85s using the mentoring feature to run the Deadmines are remaining at level 20 afterwards and have to level up again.

This is intended.

...

Seems to me a better way to do it is be grouped with said lowbie, and have a 4th choice - "Mentor" - that will send you to appropriate level for that instance only. You cannot loot and obviously gain no XP, and you need to wear either heirloom gear or soulbound level appropriates that you might have already.

[xstrykr]

While I can't say I'm not thrilled nor disgusted by the idea of it, the only thing that I hope is that it will be an optional thing to down-level to your friend's level. I know that in FFXI it was mandatory (especially to enter certain zones) but they've recently removed level restrictions on zones, but it's still required for certain instances.

That being said, one thing I am kind of sad about is that this may effectively remove instance-grind-powerleveling. Potentially not being able to run SM for hours on end and get from 30 to 40 in less than a day would suck.

Regarding the gear, I can see it working quite well with heirloom gear, but not every equipment slot has an item that will scale with level. Who knows, maybe they'll allow all of your currently equipped gear to downscale.

[Jonlo]

I love how the article has a picture of GC next to the title "THIS IS HOW THE WORLD ENDS!"

[Worldie]

Well if they are lazy they could just, for example, make every item lose 1% of each stat per level... Obviously it's just an example but you get my point.

[Gracerath]

I really enjoyed the mentoring systems in other games I've played so this could be a fun addition. However, unless the "booster" is feeling nostalgic, they really have no reason to mentor down to the lower level. They can just blow through the place with the lower level in tow. Lord knows when I'm helping people through lower level instances, my goal is to get it done quickly.

A few things come to mind. This makes me wonder if they are going to impose some sort of experience penalty for lower levels grouping with higher levels for the sake of being boosted through dungeons. That would force anyone wanting to help to basically HAVE to mentor or it wouldn't be worth doing, except for nostalgia of course. Or they can allow people to scale down to any level they want and gain exp too. For example, I think it would be neat to be level 73 questing in Dragonblight but your queue pops up and hey, you can go to shadowfang keep. You're scaled down to level 20 or whatever and earn scaled exp towards 74 like you would in a normal, level appropriate dungeon. You'd miss out on loot upgrades of course but you'd have a wide variety of dungeons you could be doing all the time for exp. I'd really love to be able to scale down to lower levels and do a wider variety of dungeons than be stuck doing Utgarde Keep and Nexus til my eyes bleed. That would also help lower level dungeon queue times quite a bit.

Anyway, interesting stuff.

[Chicken]

This makes me wonder if they are going to impose some sort of experience penalty for lower levels grouping with higher levels for the sake of being boosted through dungeons.

There actually is one already, it's not enough of a penalty to make it so a normally leveled group will get experience faster, but you definitely get lower experience per kill if you have someone of much higher level helping you.

I'm also not sure if something like this needs a gameplay incentive to be used; I see a system like this more as a chance to allow people to enjoy content at an appropriate level with their friends. A lot of people never had that chance in many of the lower level dungeons, and I definitely had a lot of fun when the game was originally released to level up and do various instances with the same group of friends. A system like this can help get a newer player get this feeling, even if it's not as many experience points as simply getting rushed through the place. It also allows those of us who don't like leveling alts to experience the content at an appropriate difficulty with our friends who do like leveling alts. At any rate, not everything in the game has to be the optimal course of action for it to be worth doing.

[Warcraft]

Sounds like an okay system but what would be REALLY great is if entering a dungeon automatically FORCED you down to a maximum level for that dungeon. Your gear could just scale down by the same ratio you scaled down by. Say your base health is 10000 and you scaled down to a level where it is 1000. Well, you just keep 10% of the stamina on your gear.

[Chicken]

Sounds like an okay system but what would be REALLY great is if entering a dungeon automatically FORCED you down to a maximum level for that dungeon. Your gear could just scale down by the same ratio you scaled down by. Say your base health is 10000 and you scaled down to a level where it is 1000. Well, you just keep 10% of the stamina on your gear.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. A system like this is great as an option, but it's bad when it's forced on you. Forcing people into it just ends up with the same kind of issue going on as non-modded Oblivion does: You never feel you get more powerful because that stuff that used to be hard? It scales in a way such as that it'll always remain hard. You don't want to take away people's option to feel awesome, but you do want to give people the choice to challenge themselves.

[Warcraft]

Sounds like an okay system but what would be REALLY great is if entering a dungeon automatically FORCED you down to a maximum level for that dungeon. Your gear could just scale down by the same ratio you scaled down by. Say your base health is 10000 and you scaled down to a level where it is 1000. Well, you just keep 10% of the stamina on your gear.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. A system like this is great as an option, but it's bad when it's forced on you. Forcing people into it just ends up with the same kind of issue going on as non-modded Oblivion does: You never feel you get more powerful because that stuff that used to be hard? It scales in a way such as that it'll always remain hard. You don't want to take away people's option to feel awesome, but you do want to give people the choice to challenge themselves.

But the current system DOESN'T make you feel more powerful. It just makes everything else feel so weak it's meaningless. Killing gray mobs doesn't give anyone the sense they are stronger. Killing an orange mob that was red a few levels go does. And what I suggested actually preserves that sort of marginal improvement through all your gear scaling down. You could still be stronger or weaker than somebody else on that level thanks to your gear. It's like max level but on any level.

Plus it would seriously help the continuity of this game. Soloing group content waters down the lore terribly.