I've been taking a break from the game and came back to see this level shift thing that has been implemented.

I would like to know if there is some way to turn this off? This thing is exactly the reason why I stopped playing Guildwars 2. All lowlevel mobs took ages to kill, which is ridiculous when you are supposed to be immensely more powerful than them.

Case in point, I just had a fight with a lvl 15 champion mob (I was lvl 40). It couldn't hurt me, but because I was scaled down it took a ridiculous amount of time for me to kill it, when I should have been able to disembowel it on the spot.

I haven't tried doing old Flashpoints yet, but I am guessing it is the same thing here? That would mean you would have to go out and find a group if you just want to farm some old stuff for a special gear look or something.

This is really stupid in my opinion. Please tell me I can turn it off. This unnecessary scaling makes me want to quit the game.

Another one of these posts. No you can't turn it off. Live with it.

Does that condescending tone you constantly hum ever start to make your throat soar? Like ever? I can understand being snarky some of the time and sometimes playful, but every single one of your posts is phrased to be antagonistic as possible, not to mention your logic and reasoning for backing your beliefs makes me believe your some kind of troll as one of them was solely to see others in a misfortunate position. Some trolls are funny, I mean heck, Crazy CT and even Bruticis has me cracking up most of the time, and every now and then they do have a good post, or, if there's a blue moon, a few good posts every now and then. With you its always insults, antagonism, and bashing. Please, try to rephrase your posts in a more constructive manner..

As for the OP... I think you put a T in there by accident, but, unfortunately for you, there is no way to turn this off.

The annoyance is because this question is asked weekly (forum search time possibly for people wanting to post, yet again).

The reason for the shift is to stop people completing things they shouldn't be able to solo - so no, you can no longer solo world bosses and you can no longer solo the flashpoints in any mode except the "solo mode".

Those are the only things you do not totally and utterly dominate in the game. So this constant "but I want it switched off" I cannot understand, unless it is just the sheer demand to be able to solo WB's which does nothing but piss people off who wanted to do said boss in a group etc.

So this constant "but I want it switched off" I cannot understand, unless it is just the sheer demand to be able to solo WB's which does nothing but piss people off who wanted to do said boss in a group etc.

Not that it affects me much, but a number of people complain because certain gear is now difficult/impossible to obtain conveniently. Pre-4.0, many FPs had unique gear drops, and some people liked to use them, so it was easy to run the FP solo and get it (for the looks, not the stats). The new solo modes don't drop this loot. Also, open world mobs used to drop gear at their level (and like FPs, some of this gear was aesthetically desirable). Level-synced mobs drop loot at the players's level, which makes grinding for specific looks difficult/impossible once you outlevel the area.

Not that it affects me much, but a number of people complain because certain gear is now difficult/impossible to obtain conveniently. Pre-4.0, many FPs had unique gear drops, and some people liked to use them, so it was easy to run the FP solo and get it (for the looks, not the stats). The new solo modes don't drop this loot. Also, open world mobs used to drop gear at their level (and like FPs, some of this gear was aesthetically desirable). Level-synced mobs drop loot at the players's level, which makes grinding for specific looks difficult/impossible once you outlevel the area.

But isn't that so awesome! I mean I kinda like heroic grinding at 65 and getting artifact gear from a level 11 boss. Sweet. If I can't wear it (usually the case) I can sell it for good credz. This makes me extremely happy.

No you cannot turn it off and it sucks.

You'll spend all that time in a game based on leveling up so bw can just level you back down in the hopes that doing extremely old content will somehow placate you into subbing longer.

If you stay at all you'll tolerate it but it sucks even time it happens because it's didn't make the content interesting or entertaining it just made it take longer. instead of 1-2 shotting things it now takes 3-5. It's quite bad.

Besides, level sync isn't so much of a drawback imo.

Before LevelSync:

With a speeder you could just run through low-lvl mobs, standard and strong ones mostly ignored you, if not you could easily outrun them

When encountering some mobs head-on or fell off your speeder or something, you could just one-shot the mobs (AoE useful) - quicker than ignoring them and outrunning them in combat mode

Now:

With a speeder just pass mobs in a decent distance (min. 13-14 meters), most will still ignore you (best example: the H2 "Black Box" on tatooine with all those Elite Sand people - I have never once pulled a mob in countless weekly H2 runs there)... or you easily outrun them

When encountering some mobs head-on or you somehow by accident fall off your speeder or something, you just one-shot (standard), two-shot (strong) or three-to-four-shot them (Elite), still quicker than ignoring and outrunning them in combat mode (which is annoying af and might well pull further mobs)

Only real disadvantage is that I cannot solo World bosses anymore (which I did from time to time, was fun ), but actually I don't miss it all that much.

So, to the OP: You will have to accept it stays and adapt to the new situation. It's not that bad - it even helped alleviate grief-play issues with open-world pvp a bit

Besides, level sync isn't so much of a drawback imo.

 

Before LevelSync:

With a speeder you could just run through low-lvl mobs, standard and strong ones mostly ignored you, if not you could easily outrun them

When encountering some mobs head-on or fell off your speeder or something, you could just one-shot the mobs (AoE useful) - quicker than ignoring them and outrunning them in combat mode

 

Now:

With a speeder just pass mobs in a decent distance (min. 13-14 meters), most will still ignore you (best example: the H2 "Black Box" on tatooine with all those Elite Sand people - I have never once pulled a mob in countless weekly H2 runs there)... or you easily outrun them

When encountering some mobs head-on or you somehow by accident fall off your speeder or something, you just one-shot (standard), two-shot (strong) or three-to-four-shot them (Elite), still quicker than ignoring and outrunning them in combat mode (which is annoying af and might well pull further mobs)

 

Only real disadvantage is that I cannot solo World bosses anymore (which I did from time to time, was fun ), but actually I don't miss it all that much.

 

So, to the OP: You will have to accept it stays and adapt to the new situation. It's not that bad - it even helped alleviate grief-play issues with open-world pvp a bit

That holds true, until they start getting tanky at planets above lv 35.

The annoyance is because this question is asked weekly (forum search time possibly for people wanting to post, yet again).

The reason for the shift is to stop people completing things they shouldn't be able to solo - so no, you can no longer solo world bosses and you can no longer solo the flashpoints in any mode except the "solo mode".

Those are the only things you do not totally and utterly dominate in the game. So this constant "but I want it switched off" I cannot understand, unless it is just the sheer demand to be able to solo WB's which does nothing but piss people off who wanted to do said boss in a group etc.

no one forces you to read or reply to these posts. You do it because you want to. Some people understand that level shift was just a way for bw to avoid making new content.

I would like to know if there is some way to turn this off?

Sadly not, somewhere in the design decision to make all of the old content relevant again they seem to have forgotten that some of the old content already was relevant (such as flashpoints to collect certain looks). None of this is possible now unless you are actually at level and get lucky with a drop.

As for the mobs themselves, even with level sync active, it isn't too bad (well I keep trying to tell myself this ).

The problem isn't level sync itself, it's some questionable design choices in the implementation of level sync.

* Level sync applies globally. All areas on a planet have the same sync scaled based on the top of the planet's level range. It would have made a lot more sense if it could have been a regional setting. Earlier zone on the starter planet with level 3 enemies? Later zone on the starter planet with level 7 enemies? Story instance where you're expected to return to the starter planet as a level 30? Story instance where you're ending the 1-50 class story with a fight on the starter planet? Dread Seed areas on various planets? Sync every one of these cases independently to be appropriate for their exact level of content. Apply a somewhat more lenient sync for regular areas and a somewhat stricter sync for heroic areas.

* Level sync is technically really straightforward in what it actually does to us, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does a couple stupid things while doing it. The first stupid thing will be bolded in a bit here... Level sync enforces caps on the mastery, endurance, and power stats. It also enforces a cap on maximum health (which for some reason appears to be a value that corresponds to a much lower endurance value than the endurance cap (Why enforce both a cap on endurance and max health? Just pick one!)) and possibly something else tied to your base weapon damage. Nothing else is capped (which thankfully means that we get the full, albeit subtle, advantage of our defense/shield/absorb/crit/accuracy/alacrity).

* There is this issue though, the second stupid thing, where these caps are all taken into account AFTER temporary bonuses from class buffs, stims, adrenals, relic procs, abilities (namely that Jugg/Guardian tank ability that's supposed to boost their max health temporarily) have been accounted for when it really ought to treat the cap as a soft cap and allow temporary bonuses to boost us beyond that value. (If they feel that it's necessary, they could write a routine to convert direct value bonuses (like if a relic is supposed to proc to grant you 400 mastery) into a percent value (like maybe just divide it by 100, so that 400 mastery proc turns into a 4% mastery proc) so that you're still within a reasonable range of the soft cap. Actually... It doesn't even need to waste time on conversions if they can just write conditions to apply different rules when something is used normally vs when it is used under level synced conditions.)

* Drops scaled to the player's level... It's not a "bad" thing but it does seem like they should have allowed for drops specific to the enemy level to be possible alongside the scaled drops. Allow some cosmetic gear specific to the location to be a possible drop from an enemy regardless of the player's level.

I also still question why all flashpoints and operations (except solo mode Black Talon / Esseles, I think? plus they forgot to include tactical / solo mode conversions for Colicoid War Games and Kaon Under Siege) are scaled and bolstered for the level cap. In theory the concept and purpose for all the revamps to flashpoints and operations should have been to future-proof them. New level cap comes along and they're automatically maintained. But this is not the case with everything level capped. When the level cap goes up they will have to take some time to go through and rescale everything up to the new level cap.

I still think that the original level scaling of all flashpoints and operations should have been left alone and they just should have used sync to cap people at an appropriate level for the mission. (Sync would be fairly lenient for the solo / tactical versions and noticeably stricter for the hard / nightmare versions.) And maybe they could have applied a bolster that only goes up to a bare minimum appropriate for the mission. Doing those things would have been future-proofed. Level cap could go up, and nothing would need to be rescaled or updated. It would just automatically work correctly.

Where story / tactical stuff is concerned it was kind of a mistake to lower the minimum level requirements on everything. They just should have had everything available in group finder from its designed level up to the level cap. So things become available as options as you level into them, and then they remain as options forever after that.

I would like to know if there is some way to turn this off?

Heh I feel for you, everyone wants this turned off (and if they dont they are weird), unfortunately no, you cant turn it off!

Thank you for all the (reasonable) replies. I guess I will let my subscription run out. I doubt I will keep playing when the same issue made me quit GW2.

LMAO you're quitting over level sync? seriously? There legitimately is no reason to need to turn it off. You're still massively OP on heroics. You can't solo any fp or world bosses but you shouldn't be able to. Without level sync, there'd be no worthwhile heroics.

Heh I feel for you, everyone wants this turned off (and if they dont they are weird), unfortunately no, you cant turn it off!

You don't speak for me and you certainly don't speak for everyone.

I think it was a great move and boo-freaking-hoo to the people that can't bear 2-shotting things instead of 1-shotting things and if this is all it takes for them to quit and forget about 99.993% of the rest of the game then I fell so sorry for them.

You don't speak for me and you certainly don't speak for everyone.

Of course he does. Look at his posting history.

You don't speak for me and you certainly don't speak for everyone.

 

I think it was a great move and boo-freaking-hoo to the people that can't bear 2-shotting things instead of 1-shotting things and if this is all it takes for them to quit and forget about 99.993% of the rest of the game then I fell so sorry for them.

Agreed.

You don't speak for me and you certainly don't speak for everyone.

 

I think it was a great move and boo-freaking-hoo to the people that can't bear 2-shotting things instead of 1-shotting things and if this is all it takes for them to quit and forget about 99.993% of the rest of the game then I fell so sorry for them.

Oh yes, nothing makes you feel heroic like fighting a level 12 Darth Baras.

I like it. It discourages strong players from traveling to low level planets just to gank people. It was a problem before level shifting and seems much less prevalent now.

You know what else discourages high-level characters from going to low-level worlds to gank people? Playing in a PVE zone.

Personally it's never been am issue for me. Generally what I do is get through the starting planet and then just heroic grinding. Once I finished all heroics using the xp boost I'm usually close to level 60.

The gear rewards from Georgia usually stat cap me for the zone. Even capped, mobs are easy to beat and can usually kill them quickly.

I don't know about turning it off, but it would be nice if there was:

A) some consistency

or

B) you could change how close to them you are, in level (within a certain range)

Cause some areas, you outlevel such that they're gray (particular on starter planets), sometimes you're synced to same level, sometimes to two levels higher, sometimes four levels higher. It's all over the map and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.