Curse

Loch · Oct 27, 2005, 03:39 PM // 15:39

I don't see the point of an increased level cap; it's not like it would do much for the game. For me, the levelling curve in GW seemed more like a way to match the learning curve of early-to-midgame missions as opposed to something that you constantly strive for. Once you ascend, it's all about how you play as part of a team (or as a commander, if you hench all the missions).

I know people want a way to improve their character in PvE; you can always get enough skill points to unlock every skill if you want that. Hey, that's what Sorrow's Furnace is for (well, UW and FoW too, but we don't always have favor or a decent group for it).

I wouldn't doubt the possibility of an increased level cap. I just don't see a need for it.

Morganas · Oct 27, 2005, 05:27 PM // 17:27

Problems mentioned above: Increased attribute points will unbalance certain skills, backout for instance.

Increased HP will make degen useless.

Increased energy will make energy degen useless.

But... apparently PVE players want lvls to mean something, so how about just adding a level, and all it does is affect your hit rate and spells failure rate against monster foes. So, against an even level monster you're hitting 100% of the time, getting 100% of the time, and against a +5 you're getting hit 100% of the time, and only hitting 75% of the time. This will slow the rate at which content can be seen, which is usually the goal of lvls for the designer. You won't be able to fly through zone x and do anything in zone y without lvling first. Obviously this has to be tweaked for healer chars, but you get the picture.

MSecorsky · Oct 27, 2005, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Problems mentioned above: Increased attribute points will unbalance certain skills, backout for instance.

Increased HP will make degen useless.

Increased energy will make energy degen useless.

But... apparently PVE players want lvls to mean something, so how about just adding a level, and all it does is affect your hit rate and spells failure rate against monster foes. So, against an even level monster you're hitting 100% of the time, getting 100% of the time, and against a +5 you're getting hit 100% of the time, and only hitting 75% of the time. This will slow the rate at which content can be seen, which is usually the goal of lvls for the designer. You won't be able to fly through zone x and do anything in zone y without lvling first. Obviously this has to be tweaked for healer chars, but you get the picture.

Bah, who wants to listen to kids going off about how their uber-level actually means something? You think you have to listen to enough just regarding rank, ... ugh.

Akhilleus · Oct 27, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

i think a level cap increase is an insanely BAD IDEA, simply because more skillpoints would allow certain classes that are designed to be branched an enormous advantage.
example; the primary downside of an ele is that they cannot branch into, say, air and fire magic both with lvl 12, and not be severely lacking in other key areas (specifically energy storage), even with only adding 30 skillpoints, you would allow a vast increase in lower-level skills, and an ele would be able to effectivly use 2 classes at once, and deal immense damage. n/me or me/n degen nuker's primary downside is that because they have to focus on domination magic and curses/blood magic, they cant put much into the way of fast casting/soul reaping and inspiration/death magic, a simple 30 extra skillpoints would fix that rpoblem, and make for a severely deadly enemy.
as previously mentioned, rangers would be able to max out expertise and marksmanship and close to something else, making for a high-damage hero with virtualy no cast in the way of spells.
the 2 character types that would suffer the most would be monks and warriors.
because divine wouldnt be nearly as effective as the increase in damage potential from casters, they would have a near impossible time keeping up with heals, and monks would become near useless for any role other than smiters; and in that role they would do deplorable damage compared to the other casters.
a warrior's skillbar does not possess the space to make them effective in mroe than 1 weapon type, even with the added skills, and a half decent warrior will have high levels in thier main weapon class, tactics AND strength, so adding 30 points to them would barely boost the effectiveness.
all in all you would repeat the mistake that was made with diablo 2; when the power of skills is upped, casters gain the largest bonus, and instead of having every class counterable by any other class built a cetain way, you would end up with 3 highly rigged character types.
and if you werent aware, even the small bonus of +30 skillpoints as i mentioned would throw off the game entirely, and thats less than half the skillpoint bonus you would recieve from upping the level cap to as low as 25.

Sanji · Oct 27, 2005, 07:26 PM // 19:26

My view on increasing the cap or what have you changes depends on the reason behind it and how they execute it.

If it's done just to shut the people up who want Guild Wars to be more of a Hitting monsters gaining arbitrary numbers and loot simulator, forget it. Anet would be better off making a sequal and rebuilding the game from the ground up than screwing up Guild Wars in hopes to please people who are probably going to hate it no matter what they do.

If it can be done to deepen the game and not just to make numbers bigger for grind monkeys, I would be willing to accept it.

Hanuman li Tosh · Oct 27, 2005, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaZoO

You wouldn't have to have more attribute points, or hit points. It would be just as easy ass making 40 the Max level. 5 Attribute points and 10hp per level, as well as earning skill points. PvE Players get their levels, PvPers keep their Skill levels, and Life the same. Problem Solved.

that would certainly not solve the problem...

ok, im going to cast lightning orb which maxes out around 150 on that level 40. ok, cool, hit him for 142. now he only has 633 hit points left...

Venus · Oct 27, 2005, 07:42 PM // 19:42

/signed

Mercury Angel · Oct 27, 2005, 07:44 PM // 19:44

As a side-note, in case anyone's forgotten, spells that don't ignore defence are affected by level modifiers as well as attribute rank. Hence why a level 28 elementalist monster can deal massive spell damage to you despite having a cap at 16 attribute.

However, any spells/skills where level modifiers do not apply, would be comparatively worse.

Think ascalon post-searing;
Elementalists that go back there as level 20 can nearly one-hit most monsters there. Warriors hit hard, and so do rangers.

Necromancers can deal decent damage with Deathly Swarm, I suppose, and same holds true for Monks and Zealot's Fire, but for most practical purposes, Necros, Monks, and Mesmers deal poor damage in comparison.

While an ele's fireball is dealing ~200 AoE damage per cast, a Mesmer's Energy Surge will hurt a mere 80. Balthazar's Aura/Symbol of Wrath/Chaos Storm/Spiteful Spirit are jokes compared to the massive damage laid down by Fire Storm at that point.

And of course, as brought up, healing is another important aspect not affected by level modifiers which would also become less useful proportionately.

I'd heard that World of Warcraft has such a problem in relation to equipment. Melee classes get consistent boosts for their epic equipment, more damage ouput, less damage intake, more health, etc, whereas casters are shafted with odd equipment that gives penalties in exchange for slightly increased chance of spell criticals. Something like that. Seeing as I don't play WoW, I can't truly comment on it, but it sounds like a somewhat similar issue. Maybe someone else can explain the complaints.

John Waffletord · Oct 27, 2005, 08:57 PM // 20:57

The reason GW is so good is because of the balance.. if they mess with the level cap they could screw up the balance.

Anet was really the one to bring balance to the force.. not anakin skywalker.

Charcoal Ann · Oct 27, 2005, 09:00 PM // 21:00

i wonder, why is it that people feel the need to get big numbers to appear next to their name?

as it is PvP is balanced. if we increase the cap to 40 it stays balanced against lvl 40s (if we assume that ANet manage to balance the skills again). and lvl 40s will be the only chars in those high lvl areas. so percentage wise it would likely mean that everything is EXACTLY the same. bigger dmg and bigger armor and bigger hp.

in PvE it would mean that you HAVE TO spend ages lvling up to be accepted into teams (because of the exponential increase in xp every lvl). this game is meant to be a popular game. an accessable game for those who CAN'T spend 20 hours a week on it. increasing the lvl cap would mean that people would be FORCED to grind. uh huh thats smart.

in PvP it would have no effect save bigger numbers everywhere.
in PvE it would only serve to increase Grind.

so tell me again, why would we want an increase?

IMO an increase is simply a pointless move that will ONLY serve to chase people who can't play much, away.

Akhilleus · Oct 27, 2005, 09:15 PM // 21:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charcoal Ann

i wonder, why is it that people feel the need to get big numbers to appear next to their name?

as it is PvP is balanced. if we increase the cap to 40 it stays balanced against lvl 40s (if we assume that ANet manage to balance the skills again). and lvl 40s will be the only chars in those high lvl areas. so percentage wise it would likely mean that everything is EXACTLY the same. bigger dmg and bigger armor and bigger hp.

in PvE it would mean that you HAVE TO spend ages lvling up to be accepted into teams (because of the exponential increase in xp every lvl). this game is meant to be a popular game. an accessable game for those who CAN'T spend 20 hours a week on it. increasing the lvl cap would mean that people would be FORCED to grind. uh huh thats smart.

in PvP it would have no effect save bigger numbers everywhere.
in PvE it would only serve to increase Grind.

so tell me again, why would we want an increase?

IMO an increase is simply a pointless move that will ONLY serve to chase people who can't play much, away.

couldnt have said it better myself; if you want to see numbers like "9999" being spammed across the screen, play final fantasy; if you want 1-hit kills from people that actually know what they are doing, play diablo 2; if you want balance; play guild wars.
guild wars is fine as is and as the saying goes; "why fix it if it aint broke?"

the only thing i think they need to do, is re-rarify the gold item market. having max gold weapons as common as they are defeats the purpose of green weapons; that way players that enjoy the thrill of making a profit will continue to have fun with the game...at noones expense.

Loviatar · Oct 27, 2005, 09:20 PM // 21:20

here is NCsoft representative Alex Weekes answer to the original poster on this.

not in the forseable future.

WHO NEEDS NUMBER INFLATION FOR...........SAKE.

[QUOTE]Originally Posted by One and Two
They said they are considering raising the max level, as 20 means little improvement.

Exact opposite, actually. We have no intention of changing the level cap at the current time. The level cap has been set at 20 for a long time, and much of the game is designed around that level cap.[/QUOTE]

KvanCetre · Oct 27, 2005, 10:53 PM // 22:53

I love it when people claim Anet has said something and Anet responds to them

Phades · Oct 27, 2005, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwisatz_Haderach

first of all i would like you to get on gw right now go to old ascalon and slay some charr.

Notice anything

YOUR DOING WAY MORE DAMAGE THAN THE ADVERTISED AMOUNT!

This is because there is a multiplication principle* that allows you to do way more damage. As you reach some of the higher attri lvls this can be spammed to heck out so that the amount of damage you are doing will be proportional to the increase in health.

*i dont know the exact amount per attri lvl so anyone who has experimented with it and can enlighten us please post

whoops i had the mechanics wrong. after actually reading a description of the way this work i would have to say that base skill dmg would be 150% of normal damge output before armor.

ps any one know how to post a page?

Ok, then do the same thing and apply it to a caster with AL 100, just for giggles. You are also forgetting that the char are not at the basic AL 60 either. The only people who benefit from the higher cap would be physical damage dealers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercury Angel

I'd heard that World of Warcraft has such a problem in relation to equipment. Melee classes get consistent boosts for their epic equipment, more damage ouput, less damage intake, more health, etc, whereas casters are shafted with odd equipment that gives penalties in exchange for slightly increased chance of spell criticals. Something like that. Seeing as I don't play WoW, I can't truly comment on it, but it sounds like a somewhat similar issue. Maybe someone else can explain the complaints.

It is the fear of damage up front with "stupid" acting encounters that cause this.

Mercury Angel · Oct 27, 2005, 11:10 PM // 23:10

On the topic of big numbers, I'd almost forgotten about this game;

Does this have any relavence to an increased level cap in Guild Wars? Only minimally I suppose.

Haven't seen a game with bigger numbers than this, with a level 9999 cap, and almost 25k max in each stat.
Though, I hear some people like it for the exploding penguins more o_O

Edit;
Even smaller, lower quality, and not a thumbnail.

Dax · Oct 28, 2005, 03:32 AM // 03:32

[QUOTE=Loviatar]

here is NCsoft representative Alex Weekes answer to the original poster on this.

not in the forseable future.

WHO NEEDS NUMBER INFLATION FOR...........SAKE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by One and Two
They said they are considering raising the max level, as 20 means little improvement.

Exact opposite, actually. We have no intention of changing the level cap at the current time. The level cap has been set at 20 for a long time, and much of the game is designed around that level cap.[/QUOTE]

Yeesh, in the end, it all matters on what they think is best for them making money.

Granted I'm down for debating this on a player level, but this game was designed a certain way. Changing it, as in upping the level cap, would upset the balance and would require a overhaul of the entire game.

Anyone who gets bent outta shape over this is spending way too much time on the game. They are not going to change it...probably

I think level caps are meant to be broken in time. Yet they said and pretty much designed the game around a level 20 cap. I can only imagine the exploiting that would ensue if they changed that....as they probably aren't willing to change the game.

Needless to say I'm planning on a good time debating on the forums. It's just too easy.

KaPe · Oct 28, 2005, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Starting with already maxed level in expansion and having no real way to "improve" your character would be a bit... dissapointing. I don't care if it will be higher level cap or other solution, but if only new things will be skills... Bleh.

Hanuman li Tosh · Oct 28, 2005, 04:27 AM // 04:27

there will be new skills and professions in chapter 2. what we dont want is any more imbalances (good job so far for the most part) in chapter one becasue people arent satisfied with an arbitrary number.

Eet GnomeSmasher · Oct 28, 2005, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dax

Really huh, crap- that's a bit extreme. Dude, chill out they aren't going to do it.

What's the difference though grinding for skills or grinding for levels...lol there is none. They just changed the perception.

If you hadnt noticed "dude" people don't much like grinding for skills either. Hadnt you noticed the huge UAS debate that had been going on a while back?

One and Two · Oct 28, 2005, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Quote:

They said they are considering raising the max level, as 20 means little improvement.

This is supposedly said by me. Someone please point to where I said this? Um..yeah stop making up shit.

I know what they said in the beginning about level. And I know what they said in Fansite Friday 55. If you haven't noticed by now, companies often change their minds based on what would be most profitable.

Finally, I'm not pro-level increase. Frankly, I couldn't care either way.