#13 - Sept. 29, 2012, 2:33 a.m.
Character and item level scaling as you're referring to is tech that was actually added in Mists of Pandaria. This tech is what allows us to have a feature like Challenge Modes, in which we can scale your gear down to a specified level. The same is fairly easily applied to character levels.
Have we done everything we could possibly do with this tech? Absolutely not.
Do we want to throw it into everything we can just so players can run whatever they want at any level, without regard for a specific reward structure or progression system? Absolutely not.
As an example, we'd love to implement a feature where you could, say, at level 90 group up with a friend who's level 15 and run Deadmines together, and the dungeon difficulty for both of you would be relatively equivalent. But we're not going to do that before figuring out a proper system for rewarding both the high- and low-level players for their time.
We've also discussed the idea of allowing players to, for example, form a raid group of 10 players at level 90, enter Karazhan, and be scaled down to roughly level-70 character power.
This type of tech is great, but we can't throw it around arbitrarily just because we have it. We need to carefully consider ways it can be incorporated into a fun system that still feels rewarding in some regard.
It's safe to say the scaling in Challenge dungeons is just the beginning. (Another example on the horizon is Proving Grounds.) If these types of features are successful, and we see players calling for more scaling to allow them to run content without just zerging/overpowering it, we'll absolutely look at additional ways it can be applied -- what I said above should be more than a hint that we already are. ;)
