Hello, I’m Isaiah Cartwright, the lead game designer for Guild Wars 2. I’d like to talk today about some changes we made to our dynamic leveling system, which allows players to enjoy the content on any map at any level.

We had a few issues with this system that we made adjustments to. When high-level characters played in lower level zones, they were a bit too powerful, so the content was not as challenging as it could be. As a result of this, we also scaled down the rewards a bit too much.

As of the January 28 build, we made some changes to the dynamic scaling system to address these issues:

1.) We changed the formula for how attributes are calculated when the dynamic leveling adjustment system scales you down. This makes returning to lower level zones more fun and better balanced.

2.) We changed the formula for how rewards are calculated when scaled down to make it more rewarding for high-level players to visit lower level areas.

The goal is to more accurately reflect the attributes you should have at that level for a similarly geared character. While this will make some areas harder, our goal is to make all areas of Guild Wars 2 exciting and fun for players of any level. We also want players of all levels to feel like their time is well spent and rewarding in any map they go to.

In 2013, one of our main goals is to add more content to maps of all levels, as well as stronger reward structures for playing across all locations in the world. This will give us a strong structure of experiences, challenges, and rewards that are balanced for a player of any level in any map and help make the social experience of playing anywhere in our game more exciting.

Thanks for playing!