Marvel Heroes To Introduce Level Scaling By End Of The Month

Today's evidence that vertical leveling in MMOs that separates players and causes more problems than it solves is a bad idea comes from Marvel Heroes. Gazillion has announced that it would be introducing a form of level-scaling, Dynamic Combat Levels, to equalize the playing field for heroes throughout its game by the end of June.

As you'd expect, your DCL will be reduced to the level of the zone you're in, so a level 30 hero facing level 15 enemies will deal damage like a level 15 hero -- albeit one with all the powers and gear befitting a level 30. To complement this feature, Gazillion also plans to introduce a global difficulty slider to let players adjust their challenge level individually. This change will come at a later, unspecified, time.

The changes are largely being made for reasons tied to group interactions, whether positive -- playing with your friends at different levels -- or negative -- high-level players one-shotting quest mobs in low-level zones. It's almost as if vertical levels work for an RPG with one player but not as well for an MMORPG with many players...