Can we not increase the level of mobs in old expansion missions?

Well undo the experiment then, because nobody wants that. What is the point of making those scaleable?

The missions in TBM have one possible route only.

As a quick fix, for a start you can place the nameds and collectibles that spawn in these affected TBM missions out into the regular zones so we don't need to deal with this scaling BS.

So, cap the max level for TBM content to 105. I don't think the original poster was asking a technical question. They were pointing to a precedent that already established the behavior which players desire and happens to make the most sense.

Saying it's technically impossible is like saying you can't put this code in a system:

if (max(player_levels) > 100 and mission.expansion in [COTF])
{
scale_level_factor = 100;
}
else if (max(player_levels) > 105 and mission.expansion in [TDS, TBM, EOK])
{
scale_level_factor = 105;
}
else
{
scale_level_factor = max(player_levels);
}

Obviously the code would be more complicated than that but unless you have no way to distinguish between missions from different expansions, I don't see what's so impossible about it.

It was a mistake to make heroic adventures required for progression in past expansions. Going back to change it now will likely take a lot of effort, as all the missions would have to be created again as a static instance, but that's the cost of poor planning. The easiest fix without understanding your code base would seem to be to introduce a minimum and maximum limit to the allowed level scale for any individual heroic adventure. That's how World of Warcraft does it - zones are allowed to scale within a range, but not past that range.

Then you can continue to make heroic adventures for future expansions, without affecting past expansions.

So you're saying that there is this very clear distinction that developers make between missions and HAs and it's no surprise that players are confused. However, in the end they're basically the same thing because you don't have a clear reason why you make one mission an HA and another one not.

How about if we need to complete the mission for progression then it doesn't scale or at least scales to max level? If it's only for xp and group coins then it scales.

3 levels higher would be a fair deal

So maybe take the consequence of reverting all the changes you made to the HA in January patch.

This would then give you some time to think a new solution out, because the present situation makes you bleed customers.

But also consider more in the future, what can those changes here result in.

And then just as important, why are a lot of people not playing in the newest expansion?
- Is it too hard, for most people
- If above, maybe tone down the mobs and their effects, you have 2 entry zones: Skyfire, Overthere, they are way too hard for entry zones.
-- Overthere cats, plants, skorpions, decrease their dots
--- Skyfire, remove 50-60% of the flying drakes, and decrease their "aura".

In TBM changes the missions WHO also HA, to be pure missions, which does not scale up, same for CoTF/TDS/EOK/RoS, they should always keep in the level range they were intended for when the expansion got out, if you do not do this, you will find yourself in same situation when in 2 expansions level inrease

HA, when these come into right shape, put in a max level a HA can scale up to. When a HA has been out for 10 more levels, they should give very tiny amount of xp, they should not be the best xp in game.

HAs automatically scale to the highest level person in the group. If someone levels (or zones in) in the middle of the HA, all the npcs get bumped up immediately.

Unfortunately the change to HAs has people leaving in droves and others extremely upset. I think the end result is that it's going to scale down the profits from EQ for Daybreak and Columbus Nova. That's going to wind up causing someone to be on the hot seat and possibly get punished if this is as wide spread as people are claiming.

If you have say 25,000 subscribers and 5,000 of them unsubscribe that's a significant loss of revenue that will ultimately hurt everyone from the most casual player to the most hardcore raider and everyone involved at Daybreak that works in any capacity on EQ. Hell it might even affect employees that work on other Daybreak games and have nothing to do with EQ.

One important issue for me is that I often do not finish quests in an expansion before the next expansion is released. So, going back many expansions, there are still a great many quests I have not done. Getting together a group to just do it for me is asking a lot from people who are trying to do current content.

One of the benefits of gaining levels is to be able to go back and solo past content in order to finally get it done. By making older quests harder, it prevents that.

A great deal of fun and improvement for your character is to be able to go back and do content that you couldn't do before. Didn't get the speckled bunny from House of Thule? Well, if you spend the time you can get it now. Only, if Daybreak makes it level 110, you can't. Because dragging a group who will get nothing, not even experience, just so you can do it isn't going to happen.

There are several reasons players are upset at the retune
1. The retuned HAs do not give the same rewards as the ROS content they are now equivalent too - exp, currency & gear.
2. Many of the retuned HAs are used in progression, from HAs in Dead Hills (CotF) to TDS, TBM and EOK.
3. Many of the HAs have collectables
4. Many of the HAs have named that can only be killed in said HA.
5. Many of the HAs are now tuned higher than the original content was aimed at (2/3 players and mercs), something which could be done in 30 - 45 minutes.
6. Mercs haven't scaled well (but that is another issue)
7. NPCs in lower level HAs have managed to get hold of ROS spells and have now made pre 106 HAs harder.

While many would be happy with undoing the recent tuning, so they can complete, progression, collections and hunter achievements for less exp, there are some that would be upset at a exp nerf.

Maybe we can find a compromise. Maybe undo the changes for those HAs/Missions used for progression, remember if it is the last in a chain you would need to do this for all of them and nerf the exp. For those not used in progression maybe leave them as they are and move the collectables & names to the static version of the zone.

And stop NPCs 105 and lower HAs casting ROS spells.

I'm now curious are ROS group instances, missions or HAs?

I am basing mission on if it is listed under mission achievements. And for TBM, the hardest missions that shouldn't scale are listed under mission. Whether Lesser spirit armor partisan HA scale, I don't really care, they aren't that hard. But the missions definitely shouldn't scale.

The team is looking into potential options.
I'm happy to discuss how systems work or why they were implemented the way they were, but based on the tenor of the conversation so far I don't think it'll be productive, so I'll leave it at that.
The team is looking into potential options.

Is it possible that making the HA scale off the average level instead of highest level would be a better solution (assuming it is doable)? This might be a good middle ground.

thank you prathun for the response .. and for looking into other options .. I, and I'm sure many more are very appreciative of all the hard work you and the other dev's do..

I appreciate that you are looking into it. Really that is all I want to hear from a developer most of the time.

Want an option?
Undo the last patch. QUIT the job. And let EQ head into maintenance mode.
It sure beats the hell out of proactively killing it.
-R

Option 1 revert the scaling back to the base scaling it was before. This backwards scaling change did not work and has roided out the content
Option 2. Lower the Mob Levels in relation to the highest level zone.
For Example : The Descending Tower from Captain Russell.
Change the Red Mobs to Yellow.
Change the Yellow mobs to White cons
Change the white cons to Blue.

Leave the Blues as is.
Then block ROS spells from the AI Especially in TBM