Level cap - GW2

It's been told that GW2 will have world pvps, which means a really big number of people will be able to join it, therefor, the level cap will be high.

They said that either lvl100 or even no cap.

For that reason, it may sound like a WoW copy, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure that Guild Wars game designers can pull out something REALLY great (the reason why they creating GW2 is that they had some ideas that they couldn't put into the current game mechanics -> cancelled utopia -> came up with eotn with some of the features -> designing GW2)

~daraaksii

if the basic structure and balance of the game is kept: 20

1) Yes this has been done a hundred times before.

2) No they didn't say there would be an infinite level system, they said they had discussed it.

3) They should have it paced so that you hit max level around the end of the game, instead of, "Congratulations, you hit level 20 and have maxed out your leveling. You have just spent ten hours in the newbie part of the game and we are going to send you out to the real game now."

4) There will be an "enchantment" like right now for pvp that puts everyone at a level playing field for the "serious" pvp and then the rvr that they are planning it is whatever level you are at, at the moment.

The level cap doesn't affect the World PvP. Might the others, but not the World PvP, because, like how they have the fixed attributes and levels in Dragon Arena, Costume Brawls, and under-lvl 20 EN, World PvP (and hopefully all PvP in GW2) will be fixed attributed and armor and all that goodness (supposedly to match the highest level character in the match).


And they never ever said that the cap will be level 100 or no cap. They said they discussed/are discussing it. There is 100% no definantive answer on the level cap for GW2. Only thing we know that is 100% is that we can place at least 5 races (Human, Charr, Norn, Asura, and Sylvari), it is based 250 years past GW1, and our main enemies will be these Ancient Dragons.

We don't know level cap, size, experience gain rate, if there are more playable races, if there will be campaigns similar to Factions and Nightfall, if there will be expansion similar to Eye of the North, professions, etc. etc.

We pretty much just know 1% of what ANet could tell us.

lol, they didnt have any ideas. They saw WoW making a truckload and ppl going over to it, so they thought they could wet their beaks by jumping in on some of the crap WoW does. Such as crafting, mounts, world pvp, etc...

It doesn't "sound" like a WoW copy... it IS

On topic:
Reports have been flimsy about level cap in gw2. Much like politics, they're not letting on to what is in their hand. Interviews have had anet ppl say "well, we COULD not have a level cap, or we COULD make it high."
Reality check, an infinite level cap would ruin the game from day 1 and make any realy "goal" impossible.
Reality check #2: if they make the cap too high, they would be running away from their player base, much as how McCain made conventional republicans want to pull their hairs out.

Look at WoW. 10 million copies sold, fantastic game. The high level caps and long grind fest is forcing them to lower exp/level (towards halving normal levelling time) and giving bonusus to gain exp even faster. Want proof? look at WotLK, the latest expansion. Another grind fest, and less then 1/2 the playerbase has bought it (note that the 10mil is wow basic, without the first expansion. people already stopped there on the lvl cap increase).
The higher you make a cap, the more itll bite you in your ass in later stages.

If there is no levelcap at all, it will be an eternal grind fest with people stopping to play eventually. You want to play games for the actual game. Not levelling endlessly without ever reaching 'the game'. Look at both WoW and GW for this. 20-50% content is levelling (factions low-end, prophecies high-end) and the rest is designed only for those that reach the level cap.


Learn from Star Wars Galaxies. If it aint broken, dont fix it.
Just keep it on Level 20 like it is now, it has proven to work.

The level cap is important to me only in as to how long it takes to reach that maximum level.
Prophesies took a lot of gameplay to get to 20
Factions was very easy to get to 18th level before you left the start island
Nightfall was about the same as Factions.
I hope gw2 takes me at least a month or two of play before I reach the max level in the game.

For GW2 max level
20 its fine by me
30 still ok and probably less whining from both sides of the fence as 30 is a compromise.
40 means fewer complaints from ex wow players but more moans from old gw1 players.
50 or more and there would be some serious complaining threads from us if it aint broke don't fix it crowd

As long as I have plenty of quality gameplay I will be happy.

I suppose those who want very high levels do realise that it reduces the explorable area and missions that's playable at max level.
The higher the max the more mission and map space is needed for lower levels.

There would have to be the standard sized start area for level 1 to 10
Then a larger area that's playable for the median level players say 10 to 20 or 30.
The main map area for those nearing the max level.
Plus the elite areas

The higher you make the maximum level the greater the map area and missions have to be given over to lower level play.

I say 120, makes you proud of that level

Some of you guys probably need to read the GW2 FAQ on the official wiki. It has been confirmed that structured pvp will have all players on same level and gear and that they're considering the possiblity of levels going as high as 100 or infinite - http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/FAQ#Levels
But from what anet have said so far, the levels don't matter much anyway in pve or world pvp because of the side kick system - http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Side_kick
Just that someone does need to be of high level, but I reckon there will be plenty of those people.
I'd personally want infinite levels and I hate grinding/farming. Why? Because when I press H and see myself having 11 million experience while you only need 140,600 for level 20, I consider that a waste. 11 million is a small amount compared to people who started playing from prophecies or who farm a lot. In GW2, at some point the gain from the next level is insignificant or even non-existing, but at least it'd be displayed somewhere. However, I wouldn't cry if it was capped at 100, 50 or 20 or had no level system at all.

I also don't understand people who say things like "WoW clone" all day long, I mean one can say WoW is a clone of everquest, it practically uses the same model as the fantasy MMOs before it. WoW became popular because it was Warcraft and because unlike the fantasy MMOs before it, it was made more accessible to casual players aka it was dumbed down. GW is another fantasy MMO that follows more or less the same model, but is highly instanced, GW2 will follow more or less the same model, but will be less instanced; main differences come in with presentation.

"Levels" have been an integral part of RPGs as long as RPGs have been around.

The absolute value of the level and/or level cap is not relevant. All games using "levels" simply set the difficulty levels to match the player's level. The number of levels simply indicates how many "steps" there are to get to max.
"Levels" are not some sort of fixed value like "feet" or "miles" - they are just relative steps up an imaginary ladder - and the steps can be any size.

In other words, what difference does it make if you are "level 20" and do 800 damage to a level 20 foe, or you are "level 50" and do 800 damage to a level 50 foe? Or you are "pioneer" level and do 800 damage to a "pioneer" level foe?
What would it matter if GW1 had "level 50" and you did the same damage and had the same health/armor/energy/skills as you do now, facing level 50 to 60 monsters having the same armor/health/energy/skills as the level 20-30 monsters do now?

If any of you recall, even the level cap of 20 took some time to get to in Prophecies. After that, they increased your "level" by adding on various "title" tracks.

They sort of did Craywulf's idea. They stated that level 20 would be the max, so when they came out with Factions, instead of increasing your "level", you leveled up by becoming a Friend of the Luxons/Kurzicks. In Nightfall they took that a step further by making SS and LB points have an actual effect on your skill/damage levels and EotN took it even further.

Anyway, for me, PvE-wise, I like the idea of more levels. It sort of tracks your progress through the game. Beyond that, the fact that it's some particular number of levels means nothing.

go play runescape you dam grinders !

leave cap as it is !

I hadn't thought about it in that way, but you're absolutely right the titles became a way of 'leveling'. My suggestion is more than just cosmetic change of levels to title rank.

Instead using xp points as way of leveling, I'd use the xp as way of honing the skill you use to kill the baddies. So lets say you kill 500 Charr using Illusion about 90% of your kills, Your Illusion attribute would go up a point or two.

It sorta reflects training and combat experience, the more you use the skill the more talented you become. You can also switch 25% of the attribute points you gained in Illusion to any other attribute your character has. This allows for growth in other areas.

I would also get rid of professions/class and just allow us to pick 7 attributes and 1 primary attribute, this allow more flexibility. Allow all non-elite skills available from the beginning, but have attribute point requisites each spell. I would also allow anyone to wear any armor as long as they have the right attribute and meet the requisites. Lets say you have a character who has the following attributes:

Swordmanship
Beast Mastery
Healing Prayers
Fire Magic
Curses
Illusion Magic
Earth prayers

Leadership

You're character would be able to wear armor associated with Fire Magic like Flameforged. Carry a shield and spear associated with Leadership. Of course you'd have to meet the prerequisites of armor's attribute. There can be armors that are related to other attributes I listed. This allows more flexibility in that you're not stuck in a particular class/profession.

I'd also allow changing attribute skill but at a cost of losing 25% of attribute points previous gained and 50% loss for changing your primary attribute skill. So if you wanna wear Warrior's armor you can switch say Curses for Tactics.

They should bump it up by a little bit, not to much though where it becomes a hassle or something.

The biggest reason i would like to have a 50 cap is that like someone said, it feels like more of an accomplishment. And if the cap is too high, then it limits you to really have only ONE TRUE (maybe 2) main characters because your ALWAYS trying to make your main reach max....

Which means if the cap was infinite, how many ppl would really make more then like 3 characters? Again like I said, everyone would only try to make there main as high as they can get without even thinking about making a new character.

Lastly, I havent seen ANY post that said "I want infinite cap" So...
WHERE DID ANET GET THE IDEA PEOPLE WOULD LIKE THIS? lol.
Im not saying that Anet is doing a bad job at all...But the cap seems to be a big make or break for a lot of players, and it doesnt sound as if Anet heard us all correctly if you know what I mean.

I really hope for NO CAP.

High cap is still a cap - you get it and suddenly the game gets much less rewarding.

Don't make another WoW. Do better than that, go beyond the cap!

But ofcourse I don't want required heavy grind and huge power level differences between a character played for 200 hours and one played for 2000 hours. I don't want GW2 to be a copy of levelling models existing in most games, as it can really be something completely different!
It IS possible to make a game with infinite character development while still keeping the anti-grind policy and I hope that's what they're going to do with GW2.

No cap done right:
-after a certain point (I call this the level 100% point) the levels start to get much harder and harder to get and at the same time the benefits should get smaller and smaller.
-levels beyond 100% should not be required for anything ingame (like equipment or elite area access) and characters above 100% shouldn't be able to do things chars at 100% can't do, they should just be slightly more efficient.
-no stupidly high numbers and differences between players - having casual players who finished the game at level 50 and extreme hardcore players at level 250 would be ridiculous.
-no meaningless numbers - higher level must mean higher power, even if it's just a little higher.
-every possible exp source should have a level at which it's calculated and scaled down appropriately if you exceed that level significantly
-every repeatable exp source, even killing specific mobs should have diminishing returns -mindless grinding shouldn't be the way for highest levels
-achievement based exp gain possibilities at high levels
-various enchancements for improved high-end levelling for secondary characters up to the point where your highest char got. This requires some good and fresh ideas.

they should set it according to how easy it is to get XP. another idea is make the XP require the same at each level maybe?

They said I believe that they basically wouldn't have a cap because levels won't really mean anything. That it'll just be a "status effect" like titles in showing how much you've leveled through and for the people who want to grind and enjoy showing off their 1337 levels.

So it should appeal to both, no need to grind for levels just to be able to "compete" because levels won't have that effect.

I am pretty sure that's how they stated it'd be implemented back when they did the gws 2 interview for the pc gamer magazine (asura mini edition I think).

So there shouldn't be any worries, because noone will have any complaints as to how they'll do it.

I have no experience with wow or any of the other similar games so I don't know how they handle high cap levels.

We have a top level of 20 and usually fight groups around 18 to 24 with a few going higher probably 28 or 30.
Now the levels of the creatures doesn't vary no matter what the level of our party or character so when a character is 20th level some earlier parts of the game map become a walkover.

In prophesies at level 20 you can still have a good fight once your past lions arch which leaves all of Kryta the maguuma jungle the keys crystal desert southern shiverpeaks and the Fire Islands as play areas.
Plus you have the Underworld and other elite areas.

I am trying to see how prophesies would have changed given a top level of 100 or no level cap at all.
I see the top level players only finding a challenge in the last few areas they would be able to clear most of the map area solo which doesn't sound that great.

The sidekick idea has been mentioned where lower level players get empowered in some way to be able to handle harder areas while with high level players.
Isn't that a little like running ? I could at level 10 team up with a level 100 player and get to cities well into the game buy some great equipment and or skills than come back and have a real edge in the lower areas.

These shortcuts in GW already lead to masses of players who never develop their play skills fully as its only by playing that you actually learn the game.

I also believe they said you wouldn't get an insane party boost if they were too high of a level than your own, so it'd still be balanced. Couldn't go get a level 100 to power level a level 1-50 and what not.

I think they said it'd probably be like a 20 level difference or whatever as to how people would get their boost.

What you are saying is that levels dont have any effect of how well your toon performs? That is completely rediculous. (if that is what your saying)

I truly believe there will be a level cap though, because according to the 2 interviews I have seen, they both stated that "PvP only chatracters" will still have an automatic start at the level cap. Which means that levels will have to have an effect on performance otherwise why would lvl matter in PvP.

Im kind of talking out my ass right now...lol. But honestly, this level cap thing is what will make me stay or make me go...And if it IS infinite, im gone from GW...