A modest proposal - automatic mob level scaling

Problem: I have an old wizard I'm bringing up to speed. Between Frostcrypt and Crystallos, there are 6 augs in the 100 mana range that I want to farm. But those mobs are low LB to Green to me. It's boring tedium with minimal reward and a disincentive to play there.

Solution: automatically scale the mobs to the group. When my 95 warrior tags a mob and it goes on everyone's target list, the mob should take inventory of the warrior's group and their levels, and scale up to be a dark blue mob to them. This way they would hit harder and provide more of a challenge but they would also generate more experience.

This way, any time a group of max level players has to go into an old zone, there is no grumbling and groaning about fighting green/gray mobs that give little to no exp. They will always have a challenge waiting for them. A group of 95s could farm Crystallos for those 100 mana augs and always get nice dark blue mobs, with named that are even cons, while in another corner of the zone, a group of level 80s would also be dealing with dark blues to even for themselves.

To prevent cheating, the mob would have to be tied to the puller's group. So for example, the level 80 group can't ask the 95s to chop up their mobs, which would be scaled down and no challenge for a 95. Likewise, if the 95s lose control of a mob and the 80s are unfortunately in the way, the mob would respawn and reset so the 80s don't get eaten.

This would apply to the level of mob difficulty and exp given ONLY. No change in loot tables.

I can see this being very popular with nostalgic old timers. imagine a group of level 95s going to the ice giant manor in Kael or the arena, or maybe hunting in good old Sebilis or BoT again, knowing they will get dark blue mobs that would give them experience comparable to CoB/BD. It would feel like old times for the veterans.

This would not even have to be implemented game-wide. Do it like Hot Zones but in the ones people are most nostalgic about (LGuk, Seb, Karnor's, Kael, BoT).

Thoughts, veterans?

I dont think redesigning the game to scale to you is an option thats reasonable, in some ways sounds like you want them to make every zone like an LDoN which is way more overwhelming than any one can picture.

The ammount of actual content in EQ is HUGE, my best advice is you find a newer higher level zone im sorry to say but there should be a ton of zones higher leel than the old content your currently choosing to stick with.

but .... I like laying waste to vast swaths of mobs that once kicked my tail.

Locking the mobs to the group that hit it first is called a locked encounter. It's one of the game features in EQ2 that most EQ gamers complained about when EQ2 first came out. In fact, most people I know left EQ2 to come back to EQ back when it released because they said the locked encounters made the game feel less like a virtual world and more like a game. You'd see people dieing to mobs, and you couldn't help them survive. It was really pathetic.

How is it both "minimal reward" and "6 augs in the 100 mana range that I want to farm"? It sounds to me as if the OP wants both item reward worth pursuing and experience from ought to be obsolete content.

Yes, I claim Orc 1 ought to be obsolete for level 95's. This is a character advancement game. Players should advance their characters and move from new player zone to more recent and more challenging content. That's progressing.

While I would love to never set foot in new zones to level, I would be concerned about gear from those areas no longer being obtainable. In some cases, there are epic quests to think about as well.

I like the idea of having mobs scale to level, however, how do you do that in an open zone? You're in Frostcrypt at level 95 and I'm in Frostcrypt at level 78, so what does the zone do? Or we're grouped there and working together, 78 and 95, what does the zone do?

IMO, this is only realistic if there are more instanced revamps of the zone around for the higher levels (but then the rewards should be bumped up as well I would think. Do I want to fight even con 95 mobs and get a 75HP augment or a wrist piece that has 350 H/M/E?)

Obviously this would be a zone-by-zone decision. Epic mobs would have to be exempted from the code.

Locking mobs in EQ2 was designed to stop KSing. Obviously at low levels it meant you could not help people but I am not proposing to do this to newb zones. I am proposing this for select (read: not all) zones that were formerly end-game zones now abandoned by players but still containing worthwhile rewards.

So no, I do not propose making GFay or City of Mist dark blue to 95s. Karnor's and Sebilis? Yes. I had good times in those zones. Crystallos and Riftseekers would make farming the drops there worthwhile again.

As for Nolrog's example, the scale would be taken from the average of the group. So say he's duoing a 78 and 95. 78+95=173/2=86. So the mob would scale to be dark blue to a level 86. That would be about a level 82 mob.

The idea is to pump up abandoned zones, since we all know no one lingers at low levels, they race to the top ASAP. That's why Hot zones were created. So in response to

How is it both "minimal reward" and "6 augs in the 100 mana range that I want to farm"? It sounds to me as if the OP wants both item reward worth pursuing and experience from ought to be obsolete content.

The content is obsolete but the aug rewards are not, and let's face it. No one like farming obsolete content. When I farmed the 100 mana augs for my cleric, guildies were all saying what the heck are you doing in Crystallos, and not a soul was interested in joining me. If they can get exp to match even T4 HoT, that might get them to go back to the old zones.

No, we get so little content as is I'd rather not see time wasted to make farming augs for alts more 'fun' for people.

This seems like a similar concept behind monster missions... Go back to old zones (dains, old man mckenzie, naggy, trakanon, etc), play content that is challenging, and get rewards that are scaled up to the then current par all the while getting (formerly) experience. And at this stage, 100 mana Augs are replaced w Augs from more challenging and leveling appropriate mobs anyhow.

So let's make, say, Frostcrypt mobs scale to 100 just because you're attacking them making the prospect of farming the 30 AC aug there a thousand times more difficult because it's just not fun if it's not a pain in the .

Let's make farming impossible, take up the coders' time for months, and... then all quit because everything about that idea sucks. ... Yeah, let's do that.

This 'nostalgic old-timer' would drive her car through SOE's office building in protest. And if I got away with that, you'd be next. Ugh.

Here's a plan. Get a lower level alt to around that level, go in there and fight them when they're white or blue or whatever, get your augs to drop and then log back on the character you want them for and loot it.

Every time I ding, Blackburrow gets the brunt of my wrath.

Vengeance is indeed a dish best served eighty levels later...

its a decent idea but nothing like the possibility that you die to mobs that killed you 7-8 years ago for fun or aug farming :/

So what prevents the grouped level 65 tagging the mob and having it undercon so the 95 destroys it?

No thank you. I would rather them spend time again widening the group mission level gap over 15 than this.

What a fantastically laughable idea. Exploitz 'R Us.

I love it lol.

instanced would be nice if one doesn't have to have a group to get into them. he is talking about soloing. i personally would like to see a soft, normal and hard mode so that i could actually molo without getting killed. - and to have old world content scaled to my level would be awesome. maybe there could be some instanced worlds available to solorers? not likely to happen but it would be nice.

i heard that that a lot of things in eq1 are extremely difficult to change, if not impossible. when rewriting the old script, the devs have to take into account the stability of the game in relation to the new items they want to implement. that is not only time-consuming, but some of the changes are actually incompatible.

No No NO! Everquest is not a game that has should auto scale. Leave that to there park MMOs. Just no.

This. Soloing raids that once took entire armies is fun.

Besides:

1. Scale all mobs but not rewards? Nah, terrible. Scale all mobs AND rewards? LOTS of work.
2. Considered how this would work in a zone that isn't an instance with people running around that have a good 15+ level gap between them? Not well I assure you.