New level cap? What does that mean?

[SentinelDranoel]

Forget new operations, how about new abilities

[Nyla]

But I do understand, I am simply stating how it is.

 

 

Then clearly you don't just play for "fun" you use the better gear too, so you are in the system whether you realise/accept it or not.

 

 

 

Then why not do Warzone with L10 gear if gear is meaningless to you and you just PvP for the pure "fun" of PvP?

 

 

 

So you'd be fine if Bioware reset the gear grind every week?

 

Maybe you are the type of player they are aiming at then, but I don't think there's very many of you around.

 

I realise I'm using the system in place and I never said gear is meaningless to me but that the gear grind isn't important, at least a lot less than having fun.

 

What I found sad is that the reward system is for you more important than the activity you are rewarded for.

You are in a loop where you have to do something you don't really enjoy to get a new item that makes you happy because it enables you to be better at the same thing you still don't enjoy to get another shiny reward.... And you wonder why I said you needed help ?

 

I don't deny rewards systems have a place in games but when they become the most important part (to the point of stopping to play because there's no more reward or because the rewards will be resetted), there's something wrong.

Imo, too many gamers are now trained to be happy with theses systems and completely forgot what they were looking for in games, ie to spend a good time and have fun.

[Loreki]

It means they make a new level cap of say, 55.

 

The new planet they add will give XP from 50-55. The new FP, Ops, etc will give 50+ gear.

 

Pretty normal in MMOs.

 

Normally for a full expansion with several new raids, small-group dungeons and worlds. Not for a content patch with only 1 new dungeon and 1 new raid. If they get this wrong this will undoubtedly ruin their game. Having a new level cap will render the 100s of hours of existing level 50 content too easy, too boring and all-together useless.

 

There are further considerations: will crafters get new recipes for the new end-game level cap? how will the PVP brackets work? Will there be a new extra hard setting for 10 or so current FPs so that people at the new level cap can still play them?

 

It seems to me that this is the wrong call; SW:TOR and all new MMOs often struggle with having enough end game content when they are first released. This will be catastrophic if you just bin all of the existing content by raiding the level cap.

[zuile]

My guess is they will bump the level 50 raids and some of the HM FPs to the new level cap to avoid having too little content to do, I'm thinking the new art direction for gear will also show up in the new tier gear so good news for Republic with their ugly sets, this is also when we will be likely to see the new gay companions to let everyone who wants to do the romance without Bioware needing to do some optional story reset or tell people to level a new character.

[i_am_sancho]

I don't mind the level cap being raised. I just want to know that i didn't pre-make all my purple hilts and raise loads of money and save up all my wz and rwz commendations and do everything as perfect as possible after 6 months of playing and researching my ideal spec/class for absolutely nothing at all. And if it was for absolutely nothing at all, then i want to know exactly what all the changes are prior to them being implemented, i want to know what my new skill tree will look like, what all the new abilities etc do, what all the new level cap items/armour will be and how i am supposed to get them, and how much of an impact it will have on my current characters or if i will have to totally re-roll them all from the start and forget that i ever knew anything about the game up until this point.

 

Big question for me is what will happen to crafting?

[Kanana]

If you mainly play to get new gear - hey, cool, new gear and new levels to grind for! Not finished gearing up? So what, you can go straight to the new gear when it comes out!

 

If you don't play mainly to get new gear - hey, cool, new operation and new planet and new quests to do!

 

If you mainly grind gear so you can look down on those who have lesser gear - Oh, boo, for the two weeks until you clear the new content the rest of the players is closer to being your equal than before.

[Nighthawked]

Are people actually complaining about this?

 

Let me ask you a question. If you already have all the highest level stuff, what are you doing in the game?

 

Why is it so horrible when they give you new content and a reason to play again?!

 

Really, people do complain about anything.

[Kanana]

Are people actually complaining about this?

 

Let me ask you a question. If you already have all the highest level stuff, what are you doing in the game?

 

Why is it so horrible when they give you new content and a reason to play again?!

 

Really, people do complain about anything.

 

I gather they fear that suddenly and for a limited time, they are not that much better than the rest anymore. At least the "But the peons don't have to sludge through the old content anymore" complaints make me think it's about that. Not a very nice attitude, of course.

[Nippon]

Standard MMO procedure....

 

TBH by the time this all happens id expect the super servers to be up and running, all transfers and merges to be complete, and a lot of chaff / important stuff to be sorted in between.

 

We know 1.3 is on the way 1.4 is in the pipeline and id expect 1.5 and 1.6 to come as well before this hits, expect a November / December release for this.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Nippon

[AKfourtyseven]

Its going to be interesting. If they raise the cap they have to also raise all HM flashpoints and the raids to the new cap or we would literally have nothing to do. My strongest concern is PvP with this new cap. The brackets are going to need changing and i pray they dont include another tier of gear above WH unless they change the current system.

 

If the cap is 55 or 60, you cant put fresh recruit geared 50s into the same match as warhero or conqueror geared lvl 55/60s, it would be a complete joke- bolster or not.

Edited June 5, 2012 by AKfourtyseven

[Maserdom]

Excuse me but I didnt play WOW so I have no idea how a level cap increase is implemented in a gear based progression game.

Does that mean they have designed all new tier gear?

Is current tier gear now obsolete after we hit new level cap?

Will we only have one op to get gear at the new level?

What happens to hard mode flashpoints - will the required level be increased?

 

The game seems so centered on level 50 and then a gear grind I can't see how they raise the level cap without revamping everything.

 

What it means:

1) suddenly, you have just 1 op to farm instead of 2 (EV + KP) then 1 (Denova). Enjoy getting bored of the PVE endgame in 1/3 of the time.

2) casuals and carebears won't have to farm tier 1 and tier 2 anymore, which means they won't feel dumb wiping at the Council, which in turn means stretching subs a bit more.

3) 5 new exciting levels to mask the fact that there's no endgame whatsoever. Increasing the time needed to reach the "real" new endgame (meh) content will keep you subbed for one or two extra months, depending on your leveling skills and guild.

[Blondesolid]

Now people are complaining about too much end-game/new level cap content.

 

Haven't seen one post regarding too much.. there's only one op that was mentioned

[fellblade]

No clue.

 

If I were to venture a guess of around 60 though.

 

I'd LOVE it to go to 60 and then have them not extend the Talent Trees. I'd love to have 10 more points to spread around to the non-main abilities.

 

I Would totally agree with this approach - Also Add a few new Class/AC abilities as it looks like they are doing.

 

However there will no doubt people Compaining Even more about Marauders/Sentinels and Tankassins/Shadowtanks- not appreciating that they ALSO get these additional 10 skill points too......

 

Although I guess that there may be certain tree Synergies that may be overtuned, so there would have to be thorough testing of this........

[Krusaphyre]

Really, people do complain about anything.

 

The trolls aren't happy unless they are complaining.

 

I for one am happy to hear about additional content and no it's not to soon. People raced to the end game in 2 - 4 weeks and then sat there and yelled at BW for more to do. It's coming now.

 

Do you sit at the table at dinner time and snarf you food down, or do you sit back and enjoy the flavors of the food and the company you are with?

 

Keep the new stuff coming!

[KennethHoover]

This is typical for MMOs and from a business perspective a smart thing to do. Raising the level cap just makes players chase the elusive carrot all the longer.

[Goretzu]

People (read: raiders) take breaks before new expansions because they've cleared the current content and have all the gear they want.

 

Granted, I've not raided in TOR, and I have no real desire to do so after I spent 6 years playing WoW, 5 of them raiding, and 4 of those years leading a successful social raid guild. Sure, some people always quit raiding at the first hints of a new expansion, but most raiders kept raiding until they had beaten the content. THEN they started getting bored. THEN they started waiting impatiently for new content.

 

If we in TOR get new content, a raised level cap, before people are getting bored (and from what I read on the forums it's already too late for that for a lot of people), how can it be a bad thing? As long as the new content is up to scratch and not as buggy as I've read the current OPs are/were, the sooner we get it, the better.

 

Personally I'm hoping to play TOR for as long as I was playing WoW, and if new (worthwhile! Not pandas!) content is being added every year as opposed to every 18-20 months, I'll be very likely to do just that.

 

 

 

 

It's not just raiders effected, raising the level cap resets PvP too, it resets everything in fact gear-wise.

[Goretzu]

I realise I'm using the system in place and I never said gear is meaningless to me but that the gear grind isn't important, at least a lot less than having fun.

 

If gear has ANY meaning to you at all then a gear-reset will effect you (like it affects everyone).

 

 

What I found sad is that the reward system is for you more important than the activity you are rewarded for.

Again that IS the Themepark MMORPG model, if you don't like it I don't understand why you're playing a Themepark MMORPG.

 

 

You are in a loop where you have to do something you don't really enjoy to get a new item that makes you happy because it enables you to be better at the same thing you still don't enjoy to get another shiny reward.... And you wonder why I said you needed help ?

 

A grind that resets every 18 months is a vastly different thing to a grind that resets every 6 months, surely you understand this?

 

 

I don't deny rewards systems have a place in games but when they become the most important part (to the point of stopping to play because there's no more reward or because the rewards will be resetted), there's something wrong.

 

Again this is the Themepark model, and again is why SWTOR could use Sandy features..... but it seems Bioware are going for an Ultra-Themepark model instead where the treadmill is massively speeded up.

 

Imo, too many gamers are now trained to be happy with theses systems and completely forgot what they were looking for in games, ie to spend a good time and have fun.

In a game without RvR or any sandy features, there is only the PvE gear grind and PvP gear grind, both of which reset with level increases.

 

How can you play a Themepark MMORPG and not understand this reality?

[Coplann]

for PvE raising the level cap and thus virtually removing old content/gear is a way of keeping the hamster on the wheel (brought to you by WoW).

 

Other games in the past managed to add new content without destroying everything their playerbase accomplished so far.

Dark Age of Camelot anyone? Level cap is and always has been level 50. Item stat cap is and always has been fixed to your level (e.g. Armor Cap for heavy armor was 2+2*level = 102 at level 50 per piece, +75 to stats, +26 % to resistances, +11 to skills and so on). Yes they added new types of stats later on (like combat/cast speed increase and pierce-magic effects and so on) as well as added different progressions like Trials of Atlantis' Master Levels (a pain in the beginning, but only a small effect on the game's balance) and later on Champion Levels (giving you minor new abilities and some more hitpoints).

Nevertheless, a level 50, master level 10, champion level 5 was still not that much stronger than a plain level 50 and the items you could get would not raise your power over what a level 50 could use.

Even if you had an item that would add 100000 to every stat, it would not help you much, because you could optimize your equipment to similar capped levels with just any normal engame (and crafted!!!) gear.

 

Why was it done this way, and why is it awesome? Because DAoC is a RvR/PvP game, people want to PvP, take over relics and keeps, 1 vs 1, 8 vs 8 or 100 vs 100 vs 100 and not grind through stupid raids to get the next set to farm the next raid....

DAoC is still running by the way... I might have to recover my old toons...

 

For PvP in SWTOR this announcement really disapoints me. When that level cap increase is here I might just have completed my augmented war hero set just to have it devalued to worthlessness and having to grind the next set suffering through weeks and months of being roflstomped by those no-real-life'rs who can farm it in their premade in a fraction of the time that I will need and then pretend winning through gear equals skill....

[Emeda]

This is typical for MMOs and from a business perspective a smart thing to do. Raising the level cap just makes players chase the elusive carrot all the longer.

 

No it doesnt. Adding content that is for the same level would. Rasing the level cap just throws all previous end game content in the garbage and start off new.

 

So now instead of 3 OPs and how ever many hardmodes and dailies there will be 1 OPs and less harmodes and most likely the same or less amount of dailies.

 

Its not making the run for the carrot longer, its grouping up everyone together again alot closer to the carrot. Just think now they can bypass 3 OPS to get to that carrot.

 

You would think by now they would stop copying everything WoW does.

[Illyean]

what makes you think the cost of entry to the new op or fp or war zone wont be the current end game sets? you'll need all the current crap to get into the new crap, or you'll need it to stand a chance against the level 51 mob on makeb in order to level up - whole thing sounds like a good idea but it isn't, that said we have a headline and nothing else to go on so speculate it will be like the other game you like or the other game you dont, we simply do not know and with BW's track record I am confident neither do they

[Mynden]

I gather they fear that suddenly and for a limited time, they are not that much better than the rest anymore. At least the "But the peons don't have to sludge through the old content anymore" complaints make me think it's about that. Not a very nice attitude, of course.

 

I guarantee the "elitists" are excited about this. It's the people who think they are playing KOTOR 3 still and haven't gotten the memo that this is an MMO who aren't

[svartalfimposter]

Is current tier gear now obsolete after we hit new level cap?

 

This is why I quit WoW all those years ago, and it'll be why I won't return to SWTOR.

[NasherUK]

I understand the level cap increase. But...

 

In what universe does it make sense to replace 3 relevant raids with 1 in a game where people struggle to find things to do?

 

This is exactly the problem. They should keep the cap at 50 and add new content along side what we have already. Or it ends up like wow where 90% of the game is pointless and obsolete. New players come along and never see older content because no one visits it anymore.

 

If they really want to add new skills etc they could just make it part of new class quests.

Edited June 5, 2012 by NasherUK

[ARCCommanderDan]

I'm just excited to get new gear! There will be new gear attained just from the new planet, not to mention they probably need to make a few more tiers for end game PvP and PvE since they'll be increasing the level cap. But the question is: what will happen to Recruit, BM, and WH gear?

[Razot]

Meh this game is getting to be a deluxe super for the mouth breather all I want is shiny type!

Crafting for end game is useless, No open PVP, So much of the end game activities, items and skills are useless but here we go into a more lack of anything do new level cap..

Seriously Bioware fix your current systems and end game before you expand and raise level cap.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Razot