Why Raise the Level Cap Again?

[Eanelinea]

100k health here we come!

Seriously , was I the only one annoyed when in WoW players started having 300k+ health and dealing 100k+ damage. It looks like the 1 button mashing diablo 3 with wild numbers surrounding you. Let's not go there yet.

 

I don't mind this...as long as it comes SLOWLY. Like we'll get there in 5-6 years. If they up us to 60 and we get 100k health at the end dps, heals, or tank, THEN I'd be annoyed.

[Drudenfusz]

I would have liked not to have had the level cap raise to 55 in the first place, but BioWare has no idea how to do horiuontal progression, so they copy most other MMOs with the vertical progress as endgame, and that leads to increasing level caps from time to time.

[Arkerus]

They could raise the level cap without increasing the power level. But I guess that would be rather pointless.

 

I am totally onboard with a level cap increase but I hope the developers are ready to deal with power creep.

[MaximusRex]

Because all the other games do it.

 

And this is a pretty terrible reason to do it.

 

Level cap raises really puts a burden on players with lots of alts, and this game encourages lots of alts through the way class stories work. Also raising the cap means leaving old content behind, or revamping it for the new cap.

 

There have been MMOs that aren't so willy nilly with raising the level cap, only doing so with some really special system that is being added to make it feel more special. I guess ultimately level caps raises are popular because it forces the players to do the content that is in place for leveling no matter how terrible it is.

[OlafS]

Honestly I think they should end the next cap at 61 or something similar. Most OCD sufferers are obsessed with even numbers. Me? I hate the, and much prefer odd numbers, unless it's the number 4 or 8.

 

I think they should just take a leap, raise the cap to 84 and be done with it for a while.

[LordMordeth]

A Nightmare Mode for all flashpoints at level 60 would solve the flashpoint issue.

 

That actually would be kinda cool, depending of course how the mechanics were handled.

[Xienive]

One of the things I have liked about this game is the low level cap, I think they should just leave it alone. It's not fun to grind levels on a character that was capped before. Not to mention the only fun part about even leveling is the class stories and they end at around 50.

[Raansu]

I hate level cap increases....I'm still mad that this game was raised to 55. Lucky for me I will probably be long gone before they raise the cap again as this game has pretty much ran its course.

[Damask_Rose]

Personally, I enjoy leveling and think adding more and more tiers of gear for lvl 55 to be ridiculous. My 55s gather dust. I drag them out for an occasional weekly so their armor isn't tragically out of date for when they do raise the level cap. The raising of the level cap is the most exciting confirmation to come out of the last cantina stop as far as I'm concerned.

[Raansu]

Personally, I enjoy leveling and think adding more and more tiers of gear for lvl 55 to be ridiculous. My 55s gather dust. I drag them out for an occasional weekly so their armor isn't tragically out of date for when they do raise the level cap. The raising of the level cap is the most exciting confirmation to come out of the last cantina stop as far as I'm concerned.

 

Have fun never having an abundance of content then I guess?

 

One of the greatest things about FFXI was that the level cap stayed the same for almost 10 years and they continued to add content while keeping old content completely relevant. It was scaled horizontally instead of vertically. So while new gear from the new content was better, it didn't blow the old gear out of the water because the level cap was never raised and the stats were not blown out of the water. Kirin's osode was actually still one of the best chest pieces of the game and it came from one of the earliest boss fights.

 

Increasing level cap is LAZY and it ruins old content by making it no longer viable. Its a terrible design.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Have fun never having an abundance of content then I guess?

 

One of the greatest things about FFXI was that the level cap stayed the same for almost 10 years and they continued to add content while keeping old content completely relevant. It was scaled horizontally instead of vertically. So while new gear from the new content was better, it didn't blow the old gear out of the water because the level cap was never raised and the stats were not blown out of the water. Kirin's osode was actually still one of the best chest pieces of the game and it came from one of the earliest boss fights.

 

Increasing level cap is LAZY and it ruins old content by making it no longer viable. Its a terrible design.

 

I wouldn't call it lazy at all, I call it progress.

[Feasting]

I wouldn't call it lazy at all, I call it progress.

More like piss poor progress, which this game has excelled in since the announcement of F2P

[Raansu]

I wouldn't call it lazy at all, I call it progress.

 

Making old content irrelevant by increasing level caps is progress? I don't want to know what backwards nonsense goes on in your head.

[kirorx]

Idk honestly.

 

I like having more stuff to do and level cap increases makes old content obsolete

 

Just keep adding more stuff on top of the stuff we already have.

 

Variety it what is needed IMO

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Making old content irrelevant by increasing level caps is progress? I don't want to know what backwards nonsense goes on in your head.

 

If you think the grass is greener elsewhere then adios bro, I'll be here having fun and making progress.

[byteresistor]

Some of you guys haven't played a lot of MMO's, have you? SWtor has raised the level cap only once so far and you're already complaining.

 

Making old content irrelevant by increasing level caps is progress?

And playing the same thing over and over again is progress?

Edited March 23, 2014 by byteresistor

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Some of you guys haven't played a lot of MMO's, have you? SWtor has raised the level cap only once so far and you're already complaining.

 

 

And playing the same thing over and over again is progress?

 

Practice makes you better so yes, I do call that progress and it gets you ready for harder content.

[Raansu]

Some of you guys haven't played a lot of MMO's, have you? SWtor has raised the level cap only once so far and you're already complaining.

 

 

And playing the same thing over and over again is progress?

 

Been playing MMO's since UO. Doesn't mean I have to like level caps. I quit WoW for the very fact that the level cap was getting out of hand. I quit FFXI because the level cap had stayed at 75 for almost a decade then out of nowhere starts raising it to 99 making all the content over the years completely worthless. Abyssea killed that game. 5 levels didn't bother me too much in swtor but I still hate it. If it goes up to 60 I probably will leave. No point in playing a dying game that also loves to continue to kill content while adding new content at a ridiculously slow pace.

 

Level cap increases are not content, simple as that. Its lazy and it boggles my mind that people actually are in favor of such a lazy design.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Been playing MMO's since UO. Doesn't mean I have to like level caps. I quit WoW for the very fact that the level cap was getting out of hand. I quit FFXI because the level cap had stayed at 75 for almost a decade then out of nowhere starts raising it to 99 making all the content over the years completely worthless. Abyssea killed that game. 5 levels didn't bother me too much in swtor but I still hate it. If it goes up to 60 I probably will leave. No point in playing a dying game that also loves to continue to kill content while adding new content at a ridiculously slow pace.

 

Level cap increases are not content, simple as that. Its lazy and it boggles my mind that people actually are in favor of such a lazy design.

 

So I guess you missed the part about us getting another "Makeb" style expansion, more daily areas, FP's and Ops? Sounds like you don't want to bother to continue to level up your chars so that to me is lazy.

Edited March 23, 2014 by ZETA_SCORPII

[Ramalina]

Well what you really get in terms of problems with level cap inflation is twofold.

 

A lot of content can become obsolete, so there's no longer a return on a large body of invested development resources.

 

UI/ability bloat. If you have a well designed MMO interface at the initial level cap, it doesn't take many expansions with new abilities to start running into problems with having too many abilities. Peoples preferences vary, a lot of serious PvE folks try to trim their displayed abilities down to 15 or less (I've even seen UI's set up for just 6-10 abilities). PvPers tend to get more out of utility abilities and typically will have more things bound. I think for most people though somewhere in the 20-40 ability range things start to get unwieldy.

 

Now of course, there are things like detailed flight sims, where you control inputs might number well over 200, but even then, the ones you actually use frequently and may need to use quickly will be much fewer in number. Depending on complexity it might be 6 - 60, but if the number it toward the high end, some of those will be things where you have plenty of time ( 5 to 20 seconds, enough to look away from the situation, operate the control, and get eyes back on the display again ).

 

In general, I think that for talent and ability additions, the smart thing to do would be to add horizontal width to talent trees rather than extra height, and possibly make core abilities unlocked by talents a bit more expensive in terms of points. The thing is to have a choice of two really desirable options at the same level, but price them so that only one can be afforded (and you have to design so that reaching the top of the tree is at least as good as or better than only going part way up). Done well, you can open up playstyle variation, absorb extra talent points, and offer new abilities, without overloading the UI's ability to display abilities for a particular build. So you get new abilities, but there's a choice of do you want the new ability or the old ability at this level/slot. Adds interest and options without ability bloat.

 

If you can do a good job of dealing with content loss and ability bloat, then a level cap raise isn't really much of a problem.

 

There's just the trivial detail that doing so is really hard.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Ramalina

[Cernow]

Level cap increases are not content, simple as that. Its lazy and it boggles my mind that people actually are in favor of such a lazy design.

 

Well it's normally the case that a level cap increase accompanies some kind of expansion that contains new missions, new story, new things to do. In order words, content. It might not be what you want to see, but nevertheless it's content.

[Raansu]

So I guess you missed the part about us getting another "Makeb" style expansion, more daily areas, FP's and Ops? Sounds like you don't want to bother to continue to level up your chars so that to me is lazy.

 

Makeb gave us one new OP and an extremely condensed planet that could be cleared in 3 hours. Big whoop.

 

And no I don't want to bother to continue to level up my characters because they are already capped. How about releasing relevant content instead? Sorry, but raising the level cap is terrible. You like leveling so much then go make another alt.

[arunav]

So I guess you missed the part about us getting another "Makeb" style expansion, more daily areas, FP's and Ops? Sounds like you don't want to bother to continue to level up your chars so that to me is lazy.

 

No - I think you and others in the thread are missing the real point.

 

Almost all of the best FP content was done before release. The ones since haven't had the same production quality, and variety in bosses. The Ops have generally gotten better with each one, and we are up to 7 now.

 

BW doesn't get enough funding from EA to put out a lot of endgame content.

 

So: increasing the level cap again makes the situation even worse than it is at 55 - there are only a handful of HM FPs to do, and only half of them are actually good as the ones we had at 50.

 

Same thing will happen to Ops, where at least we have 4 now at 55, and the mechanics in EC can still be a challenge to pug groups.

 

If the cap is raised to 50, all the initial content from release, especially the FPs, will be completely obsolete for endgame, and there will be less raid content, which is already lacking for most players.

 

SWTOR has had a problem since launch with not having enough endgame content in general. They are finally catching up to filling it out enough, and a level cap increase will undo that progress.

 

This ignores the quality issue. They simply do not get the resources to make FPs as good as when they developed the game initially. I'd much rather still be running Directive 7 or Maelstorm Prison HM, etc., than the current HM FPs, which weren't selected at 50 for HM for a reason - they aren't as good.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

No - I think you and others in the thread are missing the real point.

 

Almost all of the best FP content was done before release. The ones since haven't had the same production quality, and variety in bosses. The Ops have generally gotten better with each one, and we are up to 7 now.

 

BW doesn't get enough funding from EA to put out a lot of endgame content.

 

So: increasing the level cap again makes the situation even worse than it is at 55 - there are only a handful of HM FPs to do, and only half of them are actually good as the ones we had at 50.

 

Same thing will happen to Ops, where at least we have 4 now at 55, and the mechanics in EC can still be a challenge to pug groups.

 

If the cap is raised to 50, all the initial content from release, especially the FPs, will be completely obsolete for endgame, and there will be less raid content, which is already lacking for most players.

 

SWTOR has had a problem since launch with not having enough endgame content in general. They are finally catching up to filling it out enough, and a level cap increase will undo that progress.

 

This ignores the quality issue. They simply do not get the resources to make FPs as good as when they developed the game initially. I'd much rather still be running Directive 7 or Maelstorm Prison HM, etc., than the current HM FPs, which weren't selected at 50 for HM for a reason - they aren't as good.

If I want the old content to remain relevant and "challenging" then I'll simply equip level 50 gear (implants, earpiece, relics etc). I've actually done this in the past and it's fun.

[DarthDymond]

I'd be happy with having the cap increases be around two years apart (which about what the rate was in WoW and felt like a reasonable pace to me). But if an MMO with this EQ-type progression system just flat out didn't increase the level cap? I don't think I'd play it.

 

MMOs need to periodically release new raids, new pvp options, new side games, and yes new level caps.