Event scaling question

What are the exact triggers to cause event scaling? I read the wiki and it's not super clear. Some people seem to think as long as your in the area and you can see health bars, it scales. Others say its when you actually try and participate in the event. Is there a clear definition for this? If its within being a certain range, what is the range? I find it a little hard to believe just being able to see health bars scales events, makes scaling a little wonky doesn't it?

Dont know if there is a way to find out exactly what can trigger the scaling, or even if it drops once you get out of map or somethhing, but just seeing its healthbar is something too extreme and rather not likely because you could happen to pass near an event and not intend to contribute to it. What I really want to know is that if you could drop the scaling somehow, like leaving combat.

@"tonyajc.2618" said:What are the exact triggers to cause event scaling? I read the wiki and it's not super clear. Some people seem to think as long as your in the area and you can see health bars, it scales. Others say its when you actually try and participate in the event. Is there a clear definition for this? If its within being a certain range, what is the range? I find it a little hard to believe just being able to see health bars scales events, makes scaling a little wonky doesn't it?

People did some research on it in the past and it's hard to be certain exactly where the lines are. Interestingly, some of the main research was done during one of the earlier incarnations of Boss Blitz: people wanted to know if not waypointing when dead affected scaling (answer: yes).

Each event has a radius, the size of which can differ greatly. We can see that a little bit by how far some foes travel before being "leashed" back to their spawn location (different mechanic, same principle). For Boss Blitz, each boss seems to be tethered to their slice of pie. Within the slice (regardless of how close the boss is), you're scaling it up. The bluffs near the center and the ring around the 'pie' seem to be safe, as well as anyone on the catwalks for the Gauntlet.

Other times, the range varies as the event progresses. We can see something of the same idea in the most recent LS4.3, since the game actually prevents us from leaving the area covered by the 'event'.

A contrasting example is claiming a guild hall. The entire hall functions as the event location and just entering with 10 people instead of 9 scales the event up to include an extra capture point. But instanced fights are different, e.g. dungeons, raids, and fractals don't scale at all.

So there's no specific rule of thumb that guarantees you are or aren't in range. However, I haven't seen any documented cases of non-instanced fights in which you are scaling and can't see health bars. There are documented examples (including Blitz) in which you can be out of range and see the bar.

The reason that event scaling is a thing and sensitive to player location is to allow more participants without making fights too easy, and to prevent a temporary surge from blocking event progress. As a result, it's going to appear "somewhat wonky" to those of us who can't see total health (officially: that's all of us, since ANet doesn't allow that data to be shown). And it's also going to result in some perverse incentives, such as in Boss Blitz, where less-is-more, i.e. 10-15 people makes the fight far, far easier than 40, even discounting the increased difficulty of killing the bosses sequentially instead of near-simultaneously.

First of all, there aren't a universal set of "exact triggers" that apply to every event. Instead, each event seems to have it's own triggers to determine when to scale, and how to scale.

From the wiki:

Event scalingEvents scale both up and down according to the number of players who are currently participating. [3] Events can scale in a number of ways:Enemy level can be increasedEnemies can gain new abilitiesNew enemy types may appear, including veterans, elites, or even champion versionsEnemy count can be increasedObjective requirements may increaseChampion enemies associated with the event will never increase in level due to scaling; this often results in elite foes that are more dangerous than the champions.Most events scale for up to 10 players.[4] Group events and large scale events such as the finale for meta events will scale much higher. For example, The Shatterer scales up to 100 players.[5]Events will scale according to the number of players around. Even a player that is not participating will scale the event up. A player that moves away, either by walking or waypointing, will immediately scale the event down.[6]

Since upscaling tends to affect spawns, and those mobs don't immediately leave once players leave, I would argue that the last statement is incorrect, or at least in need of some clarification. Once players leave, subsequent spawns for the event should scale back, but until the currently spawned mobs are defeated, the event would effectively lock in the current scaling for enemy type, level and count.

You can also observe non-combat scaling rather easily at various events with a collection. If there's just one player in the area, each of their turn-in contributions to might be 10% of the event completion, for example. However, once a 2nd player interacts with the event in some way (attacks creatures that drop the items, picks up one of the items, etc), the contribution value for either player in the area may now be reduced to 5% for each item turned in. Even after the 2nd player leaves the area, this upscaling (harder to advance the collection) will remain in effect for a while, but eventually it will scale back possibly several seconds to minutes later. This is one reason why I usually don't try to interfere with in-progress collection events since I don't want to slow it down for everyone else.

For boss blitz, it was determined that each boss was balanced for four players. Each additional player then added 20% HP.

There really hasn’t been a consistent rule of thumb to go by as what triggers scaling can vary.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/26vke4/boss_blitz_scaling_revelead/

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/26vke4/boss_blitz_scaling_revelead/The main point is very useful: each additional player has an impact, and that effect is significant enough often enough that people should waypoint when dead to make the fight easier for those who remain.

Other useful comments by the original Redditor:

Seems to be entirely ranged based. Within ~1800 range (

http://imgur.com/MP530jz

) you scale the boss up. Once you move out it immediately scales down.AndDefeated players and out-of-combat players also count. Health went immediately down when I TPed back to middle.

Although, not every event works like that.

For boss blitz, it was determined that each boss was balanced for four players.Perhaps a nitpick: I don't think we can be sure that "each boss was balanced for four players." Maybe it was balanced for 20 and then reduced x% down to a minimum of four players.

Each additional player then added 20% HP.While true, it's a little misleading. While boss health increased by 20% per player, the amount of health each player was responsible for decreased. In theory, there's a sweet spot with 10 players rather than 4: with only 4, the total health would be 25% per player, whereas with 10 it would drop to 22% per player. By 50 people: only 20% per player. Scaling only feels harder when those additional people are doing less damage than the original 4, because the high DPS folks need to dish out a higher fraction of a higher total. i.e. it's a case of severely limiting returns.

So in the fantasy land in which everyone does equal damage, more players would be better. As it turns out, in the Tyria in which we play, 4-10 is a better number than 15. Not because the boss is that much harder, but because we are that much less effective.

Final note: all that research is from four years ago. ANet has tweaked scaling a number of times since. Plus some events use step functions, e.g. the number of loot-bearing champions that spawn at the Claw of Jormag final fight increases by 1 with each X number of players close to the "ledges." (And even there, the distance is somewhat wonky; sometimes people fighting the claw seem to scale up the number, sometimes not.)

And, importantly, our abilities have grown. The breakbar mechanic has changed, so it's a lot easier (with the right skills) to stun the bosses. High DPS players do a lot more damage than before (even low DPS players probably do more damage than similar builds would have done in the past, since more of us are in ascended or exotics).

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/26vke4/boss_blitz_scaling_revelead/

Before I forget: thanks very much for finding/posting that link. It remains interesting reading.

@tonyajc.2618 said:Some people seem to think as long as your in the area and you can see health bars, it scales. Others say its when you actually try and participate in the event.

That's how it is vs that's how it used to be. About halfway through season 1 they changed scaling to simply factor everyone in the nearby area. Prior to that, players were only factored while they were actively participating. It was changed because large groups could kill bosses before they actually scaled.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/26vke4/boss_blitz_scaling_revelead/

No problem. It would be interesting if this testing could be re-done so that we can see if any changes had actually been made since the last time.

Edit: Just to put the disclaimer, I’m referring to testing by using approved means.