Fairly Fair Fights

I'm no fan of level scaling.  It's not hard to see why it's popular, since it enables a developer to squeeze a lot more mileage out of content, but for all that it's now so widely used it's rarely done well.

Level scaling is clumsily implemented in The Old Republic and outright game-breakimg in World of Warcraft, and while it's done slightly better in Neverwinter that game still makes the same mistake as SWTOR in that when a claracter is scaled down they're not scaled down nearly far enough.  In City of Heroes the system is far from finely tuned - there's a HUGE difference in power between say a level 50 scaled down to level 20 and an actual level 20 - but it does the job it was originally intended for, which was to enable massive come one, come all brawls during zone events.  It's adequate.

It works better in Guild Wars 2 than it does in any of these others, and I think there's a few reasons for that, with the first and foremost being that this was built into the game from the start.  In all the MMOs I mentioned above this is a system that was retrofitted onto the game after launch - usually years after launch - and it always shows.  In GW2 it was an integral part of the original design, so it's little wonder it works better.

There's a smoothness to the way the game shifts the player's level up and down depending not only what zone they are in but specifically where in that zone.  It isn't hidden - an indicator in the lower left corner of the HUD shows the current shift - but it's done so well it's not really noticeable unless the player is in an area they are significantly over-levelled for.  I did notice when I was one shot killing bandits when I went back to Queensdale to do some dailies, but in zones I'm meant to be in - on-level - I've never felt my power level drastically fluctuate.

It also scales up fairly well, which is a first in my experience.  When I ventured into the Mad King's Labyrinth - a Halloween event instance - I was raised up to level 80 for the duration.  I was undoubtedly weaker than an actual level 80 would have been, but not so much so that I couldn't take on at least some of the mobs I went up against.

It helps that combat in this game is faster and looser than in most other MMOs I've played.  Most fights, win or lose, are over in seconds*, and so there's less time to dwell on the numbers, or on the specific impact of individual attacks, when it's all part of one furious melee.

*The time it takes to kill a mob in this game is excellent, with lesser foes falling fast - but not too fast - and tougher enemies taking longer (relatively speaking) to down.  It's on a par with Neverwinter and City of Heroes in this respect.

In a game like WoW combat is generally a mathematical equation.  If the numbers say I'm going to win a fight then I'm going to win that fight, and WoW is structured in such a way that it's very easy to control exactly what I fight and when, whereas the action in GW2 is often a lot more chaotic.  GW2 also leans a lot less toward battles of attrition than many other MMOs - the mobs die fast, but if things get out of hand then so can I.

So combat is much like the rest of the game - fast moving, polished and streamlined - and yet despite the limited range of attacks and abilities available at any time there's still plenty of opportunities for strategy and timing to turn the tide in a difficult fight.