Loot Scaling: How Does it Work?

For anyone who’s journeyed to a lower level area in order to help friends, complete exploration objectives, or gather crafting materials has noticed that part of the time, loot scales with a character’s level. The rest of the time, players receive loot equal to the area they’re in. This is quite an interesting mechanic in theory, one that attempts to strike a balance that meets the objectives of multiple players. Need Jute Scraps at level 40? No problem– run some starting area DEs. Helping guildmates in Metrica Province? Fear not– you might get some cool upgrades, so it’s still worthwhile to loot.

But what about in practice? Is it better to farm on a low level alt, or farm on a level 80? Also, how about WvW? How does loot scaling work there? Yesterday, Linsey Murdock, Games Designer, answered a couple questions in regards to WvW loot scaling. It seems that ArenaNet still might be working out some of the kinks in the system.