Who here WANTS GW2 to have a level cap...

no to a level cap

however gw2 slows leveling itself by limited experience per kill, with an expansion higher levels can be obtained that way.

they already said pvp would be based on level so the playing field will always be even in that sense.

I really didnt get into the expansions as much as i should have using my main at the time entering into a new game already maxed just felt like grinding to finish the game.

As stated they dont need a level cap, just fix the leveling system so that in gw2 youll get to X level til the xp gain crawls so slow your almost stuck. Then with an expansion increase the xp gained with harder more advanced AI enemies. I think that way the game can grow a long time before it grows old, tiring, and boring.

maybe arena net is planning someting else for us, different level caps for doing different thing

excerpt
"It's meant to be a learn-by-doing sort of situation--rather than have overly complex skills that take an excessive amount of brain matter to understand, players will learn less complicated skills that they will be encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of. What happens if you use this skill while jumping, or that one while surrounded by monsters? Who knows? Give it a whirl and find out! Strain referred to it as "emergent complexity," and if it works the way they say it will, I shall personally send them each a fruit basket."

First of all, the number of available levels means nothing. Absolutely nothing. The next update could completely remove level cap from GW by counting every skillpoint beyond lv20 as another level, and nothing would happen except that the number floating above the head of my elementalist would change from 20 to about 1500. Max health and attribute points would still stay the same, and she wouldn't still do lolpwnage damage with every spell.

It's all about (1) how long it takes to reach the next level, and (2) how the benefits from gaining another level scale. ANet could raise the level and benefit cap to 100 in GW by dividing every experience range and level benefit by five, and very much nothing would still quite persistently happen. You'd get levels five times faster but the benefits would be five times smaller, and you'd reach lv100 just as fast as lv20 today, with the same max health and attribute points.

That said, the entire and fundamental idea of GW is that unlike in other MMOs you cannot tackle a problem just by throwing more levels to it. The leveling up is meant as apprenticeship and after that the real game begins. If GW2 abandons this design principle and either requires inane amount of work to reach maxed character stats or gives potentially unlimited benefits to those who are willing to grind XP 24/7 it will be just another bog standard MMO and not a worthy successor to the original GW.

Having no levels might be an idea. I mean then you HAVE to have skill.

NEVAR!!!! guild wars needs a cap for all us casual players, so we dont have to grind to get there. maybe an increased level cap would be nice i.e 50 or so, or even 100, but then they would have to make it easier to level up. Also as is is im barley thinking about getting GW2, mainly coz i have put so much effort into GW1, either that or ill wait a while after it comes out to buy it.

30-40 would be Nice aslong No elitism and not much harder to lvl

If you think about the current attribute system, it would work very very well applied to a no-level-limit system.

For example, say you wanted to increase your Fire Magic from 11 to 12. That requires an additional 20 attribute points. However, to increase your fire magic to 13, it would require an addition 25 points, and to go from 13 to 14, yet another 31 points.

So you see, at some point, a character that is lvl240 and a character that is lvl390 may not have very much difference. It might require an additional 700 attribute points to increase a given attribute by one additional rank. Granted, if all you did is grind, you might have 4-5 more attribute points in a given area, but it would take you 50x as much time to reach that point.

Therefore, I am fully in favor of no level cap provided they use the current attribute system, or something similar in scaling properties.

level cap. but a very high one. say like lvl 100. with slim benefits in having it

Erm... wait, what?

I translate this thread as "People with the expansions hit higher levels so the PvP will be balanced"

Can you say it another way, because that will UNBALANCE PvP. GW has been a PvP orientated game, and i expect GW2 to follow down a similar route. So, if PvP got dominated by Level 90s and everyone who doesn't want to get the expansion is level 80, then gg?

The only way i could see it working is if the extra levels give no bonus, but then they may as well be added to every game.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - an extremely high level cap, or none at all, is perfectly fine as long as there is no power difference beyond a crazily low point. Say, level 20-40, somewhere in there. However, there could still be small differences, such as new skill abilities (not necessarily more powerful, just different), and mostly cosmetic things like better skill animations, skin changes, etc. Not to mention, a pretty number that epeeners can show off, as they so love to do. It gives people something to work toward, without making it something you feel you absolutely have to have to have in order to 'keep up with the Joneses.' The more skilled level 20 can still kick the level 2,000 grinder's ass in world PvP - just the way it should be.

No one even knows if they are skill keeping the same system, am I right?

I don't see why people attach skill to level cap. Just because there's no level cap does not mean that characters will continue getting stronger. It just means that they would stop advancing at some point in the area that we're currently familiar with (such as attribute points) and, instead, would gain other (yet unknown) things that would help players feel like they are advancing that do not affect the skill-level of game play.

This has been mentioned countless times when concerning level cap.

As for comparing this idea to WoW... WoW has a level cap.

Yes. As low as possible. Also, what about no levels at all.

See, levels remove content from game, by making it obsolete.

Think of it in the sense of the low level arenas that exist now lvl 10 arena in kamadan and the max lvl 15 arena like in Yaks. They said they were going to implement that into GW2.

I'd settle for lvl 20, and for all the people you there wanting to fence with their big number, it can be more than 9000 for all I care. As long as the levels above 20 are only cosmetic.

Seriously, if you think levelling up is the goal of this game, you should already be playing something else.

If you play and practice more than he does then you should be a better player. That is the advantage to having more time to play.

The higher the level cap the more difficult it will be to join a group unless you are a very dedicated level grinder. Of course if they reduce the benefits gained at each level in order to spread things out a bit over more levels then the effect could be somewhat reduced.

I'd rather not have a level cap, but instead make it so you stop gaining benefits from level ups after, say level 50. Or perhaps, for pvp, do like they did in pokémon diamond and pearl with the battle tower, all levels are accepted but if you're over level 50 you will be temporarily reverted back to level 50 while you're battling, and when you're done battling your level goes back to what it was before.
Conclusion: don't have a level cap but stop or limit the benefits of leveling up after a certain point, I don't want imbawars

Reason for a level cap : People who enjoy playing multiple characters.
This means that not having a level cap would make it impossible to say : "This character is maxed out lets switch to another one."

My choosen alternative would be being able to change your primary as well so a single character would be all you needed.
Higher levels could then allow to unlock more proffessions and allocate attribute points to the attributes of those professions.
In that case being uncapped would be fine.

Higher levels would not make you more powerfull in se, just more versatile.

No offense but a higher level cap does not equal more content. One could increase the level cap in GW right now to 100 and it would not create mroe content it would just add even more grind to the game...."wow only 1 million more experience to get to level 90!!!"

I curently have a level 20 of each profession in the game and have had the opportunity to explore the various secondary permutations for each of them. Playing throught the storylines with very different character types, requiring very different playing styles, while still playing my ranger (my primary character) through 17 million xp has been possible because of a low level cap.

Were there no level cap (or a very high one) I would not have been able to experiment with many different options while remaining competitive or on par with the requirements for play in higher end areas.

As regards to the idea that there is nothing, or very little, to do after reaching level 20...No offense but there is always room for improvement in one's play. I am a much better ranger now than when I first reached level 20. Of course I would love more new content...but that is not a function of level cap but rather of new material.

My point here is that having a high level cap is not really relevant to content. Increasing the level cap does no more for having something to do in game than adding grind based titles.

The thing that I love about GW, that sets it apart, is that at level 20 playing the game is really about acquiring skills and choosing how to use them... instead of grinding levels to become more powerful, or farming for more powerful weapons/armour, or farming gold to buy uber weapons/armour.

They can set the level cap to whatever they like - I won't care as long as the above principle remains: No additional advantage gained beyond a certain level (and that level can be reached simply by completing missions and quests without repetition).

If people want to grind for higher levels, that's fine... likewise if it gives them access to vanity items like special armour and weapons, that's cool too - just as long as those items don't give them any actual advantage over lower levels.

I want A-Net to maintain people's interest by periodically adding new content, skills, items etc rather than setting gigantic level caps for people to grind for. That's what they intended from the start, isn't it?

My vote goes to No level cap but with significant less benefit for higher levels after a certain point.

level cap ftw

arena net have stated that there will be a level cap of around 150, but it will take the same amount of time to get to 150 as it does for us to get to 20

dont worry about it

It wouldnt matter to me if the lvl cap was 50 or infinite. I enjoy lvling my character as long as there are benefits to it. Its a part of content that i enjoy. One of the only few drawbacks about GW1 for me.

As far as the post skill>time bs. Its not true. The only ones whom have any skill are the ones that actually take time to do their own builds. Mostly everyone you see in PvP, Halls ect.. use premade builds on their bars. Whom ever can spam this skill or that skill first or fastest wins. That doesnt sound like too much skill to me. I would say it takes a lil more effort than skill to learn the skill bar or how to use it. Which equates to skill=time. Fanboi's use the excuse of CO-MMO or skill>time thing to try to seperate this game from WoW or every other MMO out there. Plain and simple fact is that the majority of online players like character developement and Anet wants more of a crowd then us few still lingering in GW.

Ok this may sound silly/absurd but I'll give it a shot:

What about no lvl cap but your lv 500 'almighty' powers are reduced to a certain 'max' lvl when playing with others.

Of course it would have to be done as it would not be a mission impossible for groups or a walk in the park for uber soloists. Then there's the farming aspect to it but if Anet act smart and make mixed group that do random things which cannot be handled by bots it should help.

I say this because while I understand the need for teams and balance, I'd love to be able to go out and "stare-kill" mobs once in a while or blast them to smithereens with a finger flick.

lvl cap 20 ftw!

You can do that in newbie areas, you know.

Uh-huh. And your source of this "fact"?
The skill>time might be bs like you say... but your view is the SAME bs. Yes, people use cookie-cutter builds in PvP, but they also use cookie-cutter builds in PvE... and I would fully expect them to use those cookie-cutter builds to reach the level cap, whatever it is.

People who make their own builds will continue to do so, those that can't will use cookie-cutters. Makes no difference if the level cap is large or small.

...and how many people were initially attracted Guild Wars because it was less grind inducing than WoW? I'd say a significant portion of the player base. Guild Wars is not, and never has been, a "WoW killer". ArenaNet should know that trying to tackle Blizzard is fairly futile, so appealing to a different kind of player is a more profitable route.

Personally I don't see the need for a higher level cap at all.

Starting at level 1 and working up is essentially how games of this type introduce a learning curve. If you were to start WoW with a level 60 Warlock (for example) it would probably feel a bit overwhelming and confusing. That is the main reason and basis behind the 'level' mechanic.

I'd say by the time you hit level 20 you have a fairly good basic understanding of the game. Possibly this could be increased to 30, but it has increasingly diminishing returns in terms of what the mechanic is actually trying to achieve.

People seem to be under the impression that higher level caps mean more content. Quite the opposite. Difficulty scales with level. At level 10 your are playing content designed roughly for your level, at level 50 your are playing content designed roughly for your level, at level 10000 you are still doing content designed for your level. With a high level cap (where you get benefits for going up in level) there is more content that you can't do because it is designed for other levels.

Level systems are just an illusion, essentially just a title that says "I have managed to get this much experience". Yet another title for people to discriminate by. People who farm endlessly with that one build (whatever is the GW2 version of the '55 Monk') will level up faster than most other players, and will have a massive advantage in getting into PuG groups despite it having little reflection on talent. To put it in simpler terms, if Guild Wars had no level cap them gold farming bots would be outstripping all but the most hardcore in terms of level.

The other downside to not having a level cap (as I explained in another thread) is it's like a title you can't ever max. The very hardcore players, say the top 0.1%, will love it. They have the time and the dedication to reach higher levels than anyone else and obtain the prestige that comes with that. The rest will feel like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick; you know you will never actually get the carrot so what is the point in trying? It removes that incentive to max out.

Then there is alt characters. Why would you ever roll an alt when you may aswell play on that one high level toon you have to keep up with everyone else so you can still get into pug groups?

TLDR: Level caps are just an illusion that achieve very little in terms of adding to the gameplay. A level cap of 20 (in Guild Wars terms) fulfilled the goal of adding a learning curve, and that is all it ever needed to do.

Good post, JR

I'd be happy to stick with 20 levels, but I wouldn't cry too much if it went up to 100, so long as the work required getting there is proportional to that of GW now. Getting to 20 only takes a few days (OK, hours for some), so getting to 100 should still be under a month. If maxing the character becomes the sole point of the game, though, I'd be pretty unimpressed.

I would also be concerned about artificial XP based higher levels, even if they don't add much (or any) power, because I doubt ANet will manage to balance farming across all classes and some will doubtless get cheap and easy ways to amass XP. For example my ele has done almost nothing of merit, but has almost as much XP as my main, because she's used for Raptor farming. I've only been doing that farm run on and off for a month - I imagine, by the end of the year, that she'll have several million more XP than characters I actually use for more respectable and varied activites. If there was a title or level for that, it would look like I was an experienced elementalist, when actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

i voted for a level cap, because I like getting the sense that I "completed" the character. none of us know how long it will take to level up, so regardless of the level cap they pick, I am hopeing it takes a max of 50-80 hours played to reach it. as it stands now it takes 5-10 hours.

This is MMO and it should have longevity (minimum lvl100), for those that say that`s too much i just ask WHY u suposed to play this game for LONG time what`s the use in reaching max lvl in few hours ??? It`s better to have 3 chars at lvl100 that are not finished game, then 8-12 chars lvl20 that have finished game (hope u understand me on this one) !
I`m more afraid for some other aspects of game, i would like the game world to be HUGE, much much bigger than it is now.I want to invest my TIME to discover it step by step NOT TO DO IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN !!!

A lot of people mentioned time and how some people don`t have life, why should you envy people who don`t have life and have max "everything" in game, maybe that`s their escape.Enjoy your RL and play the game for fun in free time and let people enjoy in whatever is fun for THEM !!!
So what if someone has max lvl of xxx and max armor so hard to obtain why should be i bothered with that. I play THE GAME for myself and the way i do it is my WAY (no mater if i invest 8 hrs or 30 min daily)!
In my humble opinion is better to INVEST 8 hours in something you LOVE then 2 hours in something u HATE !!!
What we do in our RL is personal thing, and if u want it like that in RL there`s a differences MUCH BIGGER than in any GAME, and they are much more unfair !!!

Question: why do you play gw with such anti-gw mindset?

I mean, you are practically opposite of person this game was designed to. Why do you play game you hate instead of game you would like and which already exists?

Levels 1-20/1-30 or so should be as GW 1. After that, it just keeps going up, and you get skill points as with GW 1, but it doesn't fundamentally change your character. So a level 20/30 can take on a level 100 as long as they're more skilled than the level 100.

Keep the level cap at 20.

PS. JR speaks the truth.

If all you seek from your entertainment is numbers going up, have you considered a digital calendar?

if GW2 will be PvP oriented then there should be a lvl cap ( 30,40 , 50 max ).
what i really enjoy in the game is that u dont have to wait like month or two to enter the high-end pve zones, and the pvp chars makes pvp entering something u wont bother with ure low lvl pve char. i have a very good idea about the lvl cap - make gaining lvls after u reached the max be like a title ,allowing ppl to turn it on and off when the wont , meaning that u can show off with ure lvl 118 but will not have difference with lvl 40 char in gear and stats.

your poll is not complete therefore I cannot vote, if it was up to me it is a yes and no, read my self quote and if it was up to Arena Net I think it is different cap level for doing different thing.

I agree with JR, lvl 20 cap sounds just fine to me.

that would be exactly the same shit, we have now, only with defined higher max level numbers, where in GW1 is no defined max level number and where you level infinite, but the level number stays ever at 20.

My main character for example has ~840 Skill Points earned yet minus the amount of Sp you get from quests lets say it are 830. This woldtheoretically mean, my main Character would be level 830, but shown gets only lvl 20. its really only the same crap...

No, GW2 needs to receive a real Gameplay Difference over GW1. There is more, than just reaching Level 100. like it has ben written her by others. Leveling IS FUN, as long you play normally the game and receive never the feeling of having to do excessive grinding to reach the next level.
But what anet did with GW1 was simple ridiculous. Reaching max level charas in under 1 day is retarded. Especially really when the game offers then after that nearly no content anymore, other than only stuff, that has to do with excessive grind and farming to offer long lerm motivation, which gets very quick boring and so does become the game then so too.

Leveling a character with a high level cap is one of the most best standart ways to give a game good long term motivation, when done the gameplay system very good and when the experience gain got very good balanced, so that leveling a character to max level doesn't mean to grind for an eternity.
1 and a half to 3 months of playing is no grind, a half year, thats the point, where steroetypical grind a la RO begins and from that has also GW enough in form of titles, enough of them in the game, which require way to much time to get maxed. So much time, that casual players have nearly no hope to get them ever maxed, or which are simple unreachable in a humanous tiem effort, when you have chosen for PvE titles for example, try now as pve player to get any pvp title maxed, before GW2 will come out.. impossible, especially with hero, where you must work on over 3 years, and we have still no single player, which maxed it -.- Hero title is the best example how to put into a game insane grind. Titles for online addicted base dwellers and no lifes... ya thats sure not the way, how a game like GW should be, nor hopefulyl not again GW2.

However, back to the point, that i realy wanted to point at:

When GW2 doesn't receive anythign new for its Character Development, that makes the game better over GW1, where is then there please the reason for the making of GW2 huh? Copy and paste everythign and converting from GW1 to GW2 simple makes no new better game >.< Then we could say direct, that GW2 will be only a stupid Remake with better graphics -.-


I personally really miss for the RPG flair about Leveling and training our characters the System, what is it about, why leveling a character with high cap makes so much fun. Leveling a character with cap of 100 makes sure not so much fun only, because it takes you longer time to work at and you see, how the level number raises lol

No, its the fact, that you as player will see, slowly, how your character becomes mightier and mightier, evolves with more trainign from a Nobody into a fearsome famous hero, and that you can make your character one day so strong, that you become more and more independend over party playing, because parties are something for weaklings. really strogn heroes fight alone a la Superman. its the feeling of being proud of your effort, when you created in a game with high level cap a strogn hero chara, that is able to solo nearly anywhere, except the very high end elite eras, which are made for maxed characters, where exists monsters, that are so strong, that even maxed characters have to party to stand over longer time a chance against the hordes of monsters.

The attribute System alone is way too boring and needs an serious improvement, not only because the game has too less attributes for their professions. Yet the only thign that GW's 2 class system with this attribute system is mostly able to provide us palyers are in the end only Wannabe professions, which don't look, don't move, nor don't really act like that, what we wanted to create exactly.
Also the attribute System alone offers not the fun of leveling a character, as logn the gainage of Attribut points is LIMITED for PvE, letting players be unable to max for their characters all their attributes, because the limitation of maximum 8 Skills for your Skill Bar is balancing enough, there's no reason for limited attribute points, when your SKill bar is limited to a max amount of 8 Skills.

Also I hope GW2 receives beneath an advanced better attribute system, that Gw2 will have a traditional Stat System.
because this system is it exactly, what makes leveling a character with high level cap so much fun.

Getttign with EACH level more Stat Points, that the player is free to choose to where put them at, be it your Strength Stat, your Vitality, Intelligence, Wisdom, Luck, Agility, Courage or whatever.

Because Stat systems are it, which allow players to create really unique individual Characters, not such silly Attribute Systems. Stat Systems are much more a kind of Character Fine Tuning, than anything else, because the player can decide, if he'she strengthens more the strengths of his/her charact,er or if you decide yourself to work a bit on the characters weaknesses so that they become with training no so strong, that they will stay dangerous for your character, when you meet on enemies, that will know your character's weak point. Somethign I ever missed in GW. Characters in GW are all the same, no one has real specific pros or cons. When you fight agaisnt an other players, you can#t find there on your foe weak points, to deal more damage agaisnt them or so, other the stereotypical knowledge, that you will know, that you will do with elemental damage more damage against certain professions.
But that are only profession based pros and cons, no individual character stat based ones
The basic problem of older MMORPGs with Stat systems was only , that the devs of thsoe games made ever the same failure with it, about making the decisions, a player made with Stat Points not resetable, and when, then you got ever forced to pay an increadible high amount of ingame money, or even real money, what is much worser, only therefore ,that you could get a Stat reset -.-
No, theres GW's system much better. its no problem to give GW2 a character based individual Stat System, AS LONG YOUR STAT POINTS ARE EVER RESETABLE, LIKE YOUR ATTRIBUTES !!!.

Because then players will have no regret and it will be not crucial, if you "miss-skilled" your Character in Stat Points, then you just reset them, and put the points new, which would be able to do say once every week for no fee and only when you change it more often, than once in a week, than you have to pay a little fee of say 1 Platin. I think thats a system, peopel can live with.

@arcane: wtf cares about, if you read my posts, or not, I do care a shit about it, if you do, or not ... stop the trolling, It gets annoying.