Sarfux Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I have always wondered and have observed this: People get mad at END level, because they are reaching the END of the game and if it isn't what they expected in their mind that they set up, it is a GIANT disappointment for them and they say it was a "crappy game" because of that reason. So why? Why has NO company thought of a system where...there is no end. I know there is no end in mmos..but I mean no level cap.. you just keep leveling and keep gaining more and more and more points for things as you go and the content kind of...recycles itself to make it SEEM different but it is. Why hasn't any company thought of that yet? I'm just wondering. Because I think if an mmorpg was to have NO level cap and you start at 1 and just..keep going and going, earning points, crafting whatever, trying different crew skills, this could be an even better game than it is! Just imagine TOR with this: Level system that just...doesn't stop, you keep going, getting more valor, more ds/ls points that you can buy unique things with even MORE points. No endgame. There is no end at all...no cap...no end raids...just an end to your story...for now. Keep on getting crafting points up and up...your skills just keep going... start at 0 and there be no 400 or w/e to max it just keep going. That would keep people HOOKED. It would be an amazing feature of an already amazing game. You could fight your BUTT off and the game would NEVER END. EVER. That is the mentality that makes or breaks games. It is people, and you have to know gamers' minds. Nobody wants their beloved game to end or story to end. Why should it? We should all be able to play as long as we want without a level cap. It would completely change the mentality of people saying "oh darn, this endgame BLOWS or...man..I'm almost to fifty..I don't want it to end! or man..all I do is raid" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agobi Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 the secret world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ituhata Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I can only imagine that at some point, the kind of damage your toon is going to be putting out is just going to be a bunch of E's floating over the bad guys head because your processor doesn't know how to handle that big a number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toweleeeie Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Dev costs and time to create content beyond current lvl caps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarfux Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 the secret world just to let you know. That's not even remotely CLOSE to what I am talking about. But good try Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maoxx Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 There is one MAJOR flaw to your argument though. Say I start the game 6 months down the road. I will NEVER catch up to the current cutting edge portion of the game EVER.....because that portion will again be leveling up still, also balance issues will become worse and worse the higher those characters get. So no the reason you never see something like this is because frankly it punishes new people starting later on down the line. A game like that wouldnt last past the 5 month mark before they slapped a cap on the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorge Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 an endless game would be in development endlesly, and would need so many servers and such it would never work. Great idea, i would love it also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cindikle Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Gives a goal to reach Gives a breaking point for where they can add content Levels get added when content for them comes. I believe Ragnarok online was as close as you're going to find. It went up to 1000, when you died it you lost half your levels or something like that. Could easily turn into an endless grind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girwen Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Havent played it in years but even though Ashersons Call stopped count levels at 126 a extreme amount of time was needed to get anywhere near that, you still got xp to put in your skills. So in a way with the open world setting and the game relaying more on what type of weapon/magic you use more than level/stats anyways it was never ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerokTalram Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Simple they don't have enough content to go past a certain level. Until they write more content and release an expansion, they freeze leveling. If they didn't freeze leveling, people will have outleveled the new content before it's released. You can't have unlimited levels when you don't have unlimited content. The closest thing to what you are suggesting was provided by Sandbox games like SWG, EVE. Maybe not unlimited levels but lots to do when leveled. SWG had tons to do as a leveled Character. It had instances, theme parks, and wide open planets with challenging mobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bemm Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Just imagine TOR with this: Level system that just...doesn't stop, you keep going, getting more valor, more ds/ls points that you can buy unique things with even MORE points. No endgame. There is no end at all...no cap...no end raids...just an end to your story...for now. What you are describing suits a sandbox style, very few games can pull this off however due to game balance issues and content etc. as has been pointed out in previous posts. EVE is a great example of this. TOR is a themepark game, and as such needs strict boundries such as level caps. Currently I play both for a different experience. -Bemm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agobi Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) just to let you know. That's not even remotely CLOSE to what I am talking about. But good try "no level cap.. you just keep leveling and keep gaining more and more and more points for things as you go and the content kind of...recycles itself to make it SEEM different but it is." Yea I think it is pretty close to what you were saying actually H*ll of a lot closer than swtor at least Edited February 7, 2012 by Agobi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragnHntr Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 NexusTK You level to 99 then you can use accumulated XP to purchase stats like health and mana. Damage abilities are based off how much health/mana you have. You can enter higher level caves the more stats you have purchased. Sounds neat in theory, the entire end game is just a huge grind. Grind xp to buy stats to grind more xp. Infinite gameplay sure, if you consider grinding to be good gameplay give it a shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Additc Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) There is one MAJOR flaw to your argument though. Say I start the game 6 months down the road. I will NEVER catch up to the current cutting edge portion of the game EVER.....because that portion will again be leveling up still, also balance issues will become worse and worse the higher those characters get. So no the reason you never see something like this is because frankly it punishes new people starting later on down the line. A game like that wouldnt last past the 5 month mark before they slapped a cap on the system. I counter you with EVE online. I will also add silkroad if you want a long grind to end level. They both are two diferent "cups of tea" Edited February 7, 2012 by Additc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romiz Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) OP most MMOs have no end. Just people tag the current highest level content as end game. Only time a MMO has end game is the patch before it ends. Very MMOs we all remember with true end, to just name 2, are Tabula Rasa and Star Wars Galaxies. Edited February 7, 2012 by Romiz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharagonIGN Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 That is a pretty stupid idea, actually. Leveling up isn't simply a matter of turning off the xp cap and letting you rise to infinity. There needs to be content to match your level. Gear, instances, talents, etc. No development team on Earth could ever keep up. And even if they could, it would still be a horrible horrible idea. With no endgame, all you have is leveling content. You can never have the best gear, never defeat the hardest raid, or do any other end-game content because there would be no end-game. And PvP... forget about any notion of balance once your entire playerbase is somewhere between lv 1 and infinity. Seriously, it's a incredibly dumb idea. You clearly haven't thought it through at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khyler Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Why have levels at all? Remember SWG at the start? You chose how you wanted your character to develop. If you leveled up a "class" and didn't like it, you could begin leveling up a new one and dump the other. What a concept. Also, UO was like this. But then WoW happened, and the MMO world went to s&it. As long as WoW has multiple millions of subs, we are going to get nothing but WoW clones. I never made it past my 30 days in that game. But that is me. But I know this, most of those WoW players are not going to leave WoW very long for any other game. They have their charactes built and why start over, and this is true for many games. Those of us that left other games to play SWTOR, we are looking for a better experience in our MMO. Many of us waiting so long for this game with high expectations. Maybe we shouldn't have had them, but, h?ll it is 2012. We never imagined a company would regress in development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discosoc Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Even MMO's need some kind of challenge, and that would be hard to do if you have no control over how powerful the characters can be at any given time. Imagine trying to design a boss fight so that it's challenging to a group of players ranging from 50 to, say, 180. It would basically feel like a level 10 having a level 50 run them through Esseles; the level 10 wouldn't really be contributing, and the level 50 wouldn't exactly feel challenged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
areto Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) level cap is the start of the game ..really the rest is just a tutorial. The problem is when the developers focus on leveling and forget about the actual game. I would say they generally do this because first impressions count for a lot of course, and reviewers are going to deliver a verdict without having played the end game for a month so if the game looks good leveling it gets good reviews and makes people want to get to the end-game. What I'd like to see in a game is no levels only gear, I think there could be some clever tricks to this. Like you could have caves and stuff where if you're a fresh player you can maybe kill a few guys around the entrance and get a glimpse of an intriguing area and plot and as you gear up you can get deeper and deeper revealing the story of this cave. This would give you a real sense of power-gain because you would still be killing the same guys at the start of the cave that you've always been killing. still get the same amount of cash and tokens or w/e. BUT you would be able to take them out very quickly and easily. So you would feel great fighting the medium guys which were super hard before you got The Sword Of Awesome Killingness, and beating them easily before you got into the next part. The problem with leveling mobs and XP is that there is never any point fighting the grey ones, so you are always fighting guys the level as you. It also means you can duel in town-clothes or naked and determine "skill" right for when you first pick up the game. Anyway that's an idea I thought of off the cuff, sorry if you read it thinking there would be a point. Edited February 7, 2012 by areto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyDale Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I have always wondered and have observed this: People get mad at END level, because they are reaching the END of the game and if it isn't what they expected in their mind that they set up, it is a GIANT disappointment for them and they say it was a "crappy game" because of that reason. So why? Why has NO company thought of a system where...there is no end. I know there is no end in mmos..but I mean no level cap.. you just keep leveling and keep gaining more and more and more points for things as you go and the content kind of...recycles itself to make it SEEM different but it is. Why hasn't any company thought of that yet? I'm just wondering. Because I think if an mmorpg was to have NO level cap and you start at 1 and just..keep going and going, earning points, crafting whatever, trying different crew skills, this could be an even better game than it is! Just imagine TOR with this: Level system that just...doesn't stop, you keep going, getting more valor, more ds/ls points that you can buy unique things with even MORE points. No endgame. There is no end at all...no cap...no end raids...just an end to your story...for now. Keep on getting crafting points up and up...your skills just keep going... start at 0 and there be no 400 or w/e to max it just keep going. That would keep people HOOKED. It would be an amazing feature of an already amazing game. You could fight your BUTT off and the game would NEVER END. EVER. That is the mentality that makes or breaks games. It is people, and you have to know gamers' minds. Nobody wants their beloved game to end or story to end. Why should it? We should all be able to play as long as we want without a level cap. It would completely change the mentality of people saying "oh darn, this endgame BLOWS or...man..I'm almost to fifty..I don't want it to end! or man..all I do is raid" Sarfux, this is an excellent post. And I've often wondered this myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyDale Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Even MMO's need some kind of challenge, and that would be hard to do if you have no control over how powerful the characters can be at any given time. Imagine trying to design a boss fight so that it's challenging to a group of players ranging from 50 to, say, 180. It would basically feel like a level 10 having a level 50 run them through Esseles; the level 10 wouldn't really be contributing, and the level 50 wouldn't exactly feel challenged. Would be simple Discoscoc. All you would have to do is make the monsters scale based off the player's level. It's extremely easy to do in fact and I even designed a similiar system myself on RPGs I have designed in the past. All you need is to create a code that adds stats to the monster before combat begins based off the character's level. It would be a great system, and ensure a healthy challenge at all times. Edited February 7, 2012 by JeremyDale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datank Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 If you ever played Conquer online, you'd see this.. You can get to level 130+ and "Reborn" do a very hard quest turn into level 15 I believe as a new class with traits of your previous class. You can reborn 3 times, and It takes long to level, do the 2nd and 3rd reborn quest.. the best part is you can manage level 150+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucyfer_Infinity Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 the secret world I used to be very interested in that game, liked the idea. Not anymore. I would sooner cut both of my hands off than play a game with microtransactions on top of sub fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Just imagine TOR with this: Level system that just...doesn't stop, you keep going, getting more valor, more ds/ls points that you can buy unique things with even MORE points. How exactly do you propose to make infinite content? Edited February 7, 2012 by JustTed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancrizans Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I used to play a game called Asheron's Call 2. While it DID technically have a level cap, which was 150 if I remember correctly, it was unreachable as there was no content for that level. Every so often they would roll out some way for people to gain levels when they reached the high end of the content...one such bit of content was called Heart of Darkness, and it was basically a dungeon filled with mobs which players would grind endlessly to gain levels. I think when the game closed, the highest level player was in the 90s. By that time they had added an expansion which was pretty cool...unfortunately the game closed shortly thereafter. I loved that game, but I don't think infinite levels is a good way to go for MMOs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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