For your consideration, ArenaNet (level cap in GW2)

First, to go over the situation: ArenaNet plans on raising the level cap in Guild Wars 2 or removing it completely. One developer talked of "It is certain that you will be leveling your character over hundreds of hours." (Hundreds of hours. Character in the singular. Note those two things.) They believe that 'many players want higher levels than 20' - personally, when I take a stroll through a Guild Wars town and ask what the opinion on it is, most like it at 20, so I'm not sure where their statistics are from; perhaps they were in World of Warcraft.

But that's what they're planning:

Unnecessary high level cap.
Hundreds of hours of grinding.
Focus on one character, apparently meant to punish those who like multiple equal characters.

So, we have made ourselves aware of the situation.

Now, in hopes that an ArenaNet developer will read this, I have a few objections to the raising of this level cap.

- Firstly, 20 levels are fine as it is; they allow players to quickly reach full game content. Granted it takes longer in games like Prophecies, but still much quicker than in the high-cap games like World of Warcraft.

- Secondly, a high or infinite level cap doesn't bring anything to the game beyond epeen stroking. It really doesn't, aside from perhaps bringing an increased difficulty in balancing.

- It will cause increased discrimination in Pickup Groups. Not only are Pickup Groups in Guild Wars already overwhelmingly hostile and rude, they are also in the perfect mindset to go into level elitism. Even if the statistical advantage disappears after a certain point, they'll still assume it equals skill. And here I thought ArenaNet wanted to encourage playing with other humans.

- Difficulties for those of us who play multiple characters. Hundreds of hours of leveling to reach max level? Say that's 200 hours. 200x8=1600 hours, just as a hypothetical amount of time, to level up 8 characters. Possibly powerleveling grind would be faster, but then that's grind, which doesn't belong in Guild Wars. Suppose there is no cap? Well that pretty much kills off the idea of playing multiple characters with any regularity.

ArenaNet, if a dev should chance to read this and bring it to your attention, please consider the following course of actions.

1 - Release the statistics on the poll you did that told you a majority of players wanted higher levels, and not just the small trickle of WoW trolls.

2 - Consider how well the 20-level cap works and consider keeping it.

3 - Consider unifying multiple characters in GW2 so that the more grindish activities such as leveling, titles, etc, can be made account based (but optional, so the few who like leveling can still do it) ie one character is level 1024, after hundreds of hours, and you can create another character who starts at level 1024 as well. If a character gains a level, the account gains a level. Thus reduce time spent leveling.

Personally if I discover there's level grind longer than the few hours used in Guild Wars, I won't even bother. That's what happens in WoW styled games, you spend hundreds of hours just reaching max level and when you do, there's no content besides raids. Much better the Gw1 style where you hit max level in a few hours (Factions, takes a bit longer in NF and Prophecies) and then get to play the game.

for once i agree with nearly all of this post, save point #3. something about getting one char to level ### and then the rest created start at that level seems .... well seems wrong, hinkie..something like that. i do however agree with virtually everything else stated.

id like a level increase i have to admit, just to have some sense of accomplishment for time spent. i know most people say time does not equal skill and thats true. but time does have some advantages when it comes to knowing the game, skill knowledge, enviroment familiarity etc.

the size of the level increase is another topic i for one am not equipped to tackle. ill leave that to the Guru types

just my 2 pennies!!!


Cronk

I agree with most of that post except (like the poster above me) number 3. I don't object with raising the level cap a little...like say to 50, but I firmly believe that a really high level cap will destroy a lot of what I like about Guild Wars...

I'd at least like Anet to speak out on how this higher level cap is to implemented and how it will differ from our current mode...

Personally I do not want an unlimited level cap. But I wouldn't mind having it be more than 20. Nothing too high like.. idk 70+. I would settle for 60. Its on the high side, but if GW stays true to what it is now we will still be "entering" the game at the max level or if its high, at least a bigger/better portion of the game. Also I think another factor is that once someone hits the max level in a title normally they get all happy and woo! /dance! Well, think of leveling the same way, except there is more of a bonus because the way GW is designed the game "starts" when we hit the max level. So now there is more of a "woo I did something!" factor than right now. Because right now hitting level 20 isn't all woo-y because like you said, you can get there in a few hrs if you really tried.

Anet should definitely listen to the player's input. From the people I have heard and talked to they aren't on board for an unlimited or 100+ level cap. But then again, maybe Anet has some great idea that we do not know about that will make a 100+ level cap not seem so bad. Remember that we no pretty much NOTHING about GW2 and Anet knows EVERYTHING. Right now we have to be the good little children we are and trust that our Anet parents know whats best for us. Yea, listen to the kids, make them happy, but ultimately "the parent knows best."

Anet has made the game that we all love and spend way too much time playing. They know how to do their jobs. Yes, they've screwed up a couple many times, but we still play the game right? Let them do their job, cause they certainly know more about how to make a video game than we do, and worse comes to worse, we can QQ and complain until we get what we want, just like what we did in GW1.

~Stc95

Raise level cap to something like 50 . . . Not too hard to get to though.. >< one char? thats scrwed up

In my opinion 40 levels is a health maximum; I believe that's what they use in Dungeons and Dragons epic levels.

IE at 30 levels a character would be equivalent in power to Glint, Shiro Tagachi, etc (and face similar enemies) and at 40 they'd be around equivalent to, perhaps, Grenth/Dwayna/Lyssa/Melandru/Balthazar/Abaddon. And would face the very strongest enemies.

I'm also in favor of reducing the amount of time needed to do stuff and get stuff, but make it very hard to do so. Such that, say, a certain mission would be fairly quick; half an hour maybe, but extremely hard and would take many retries. Likewise I'd enjoy seeing leveling being fast but enemies a major challenge to defeat.

I think they already said that there was gonna be a point where you can still level, but won't get 'stronger' (what attribute points are now).

Which again raises the point, if we don't get stronger why have higher levels at all, especially since so many of us don't even want it higher.

Like others I agree with some of the op's post.

I'm not sure where the high or unlimited cap came from last I heard it was possibly going up a little for gw2 and some were hinting at 25 maybe 30.
High level cap means higher level power "I assume high health energy armour damage" and that means tougher and more creatures and pvp played at these higher levels.
The pve is sorted pretty much ie we do more damage and so do they so the level means nothing really.
What the effect would be on pvp is anyone's guess.

Strangely the elitism in parties I have observed has nothing to do with level and anyway the proposed leveling system for parties would remove that.
Observed elitism in gw1 is in 3 parts
1 Builds you don't have xyz skills so we don't want you
2 Emotes players judged on their pvp emote level for a pve party
3 Armour quite a while back players were turned down because they didn't have the latest inscribed armour.
The level of "Rudeness depends very much on whether the party aim is to have fun or just how badly they want a to achieve a specific aim, the longer they have been looking for a complete party the more frustrated they get.
I have been there many times with parties it took so long to assemble that people started leaving.

I have moved towards multiple characters for several reasons I did want one for each character class although I don't envision having the same foe gw2 at the moment but I will probably want one of each race.

I am not a player who needs or wants to have everything on every character so endless grind isn't for me.
I would grind if it gave me anything important but elite armour and great weapon skins do not protect more or damage more so forget it.
Would grind for money if I could spend it on my guild hall or a home for my character or for setting up a shop.
Those are worth grinding for.

Not going over titles again I have said enough of my views on those threads, and that horse is well dead and well flogged. "what a terrible saying"

It's something I have observed in the real world you get the majority of people who say nothing then you get the minority who spout off all the time on forums.
Its difficult to get the feel of the community either from forums or polls, forums have people like me who have opinions on everything and just need an audience and I don't know if my views are typical or not.
Polls can be influenced by the questions asked ie ask the right questions and get the answer you want.

if there is no bonus for getting to a higher level there is no point in getting to that level---thus no point for having more levels than what would get you to max health/energy....

so higher level is ...pointless.

I agree with the OP as well...as one of those multi character people (I just cant play one character for so many hours---it gets boring and I would have quit gw long before factions came out if that had been the case!...hm would have saved myself lots of money as well seeing as I have the ce of factions and nf....)

Yea why would people want that.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...perience+title

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=68733

you all failed to see what GW2 would be. my opinion is No-Level Cap = perfect.

There should not have a level cap in GW1 to begin with.

simple reason. NO ONE NEED TO REACH TOP LEVEL TO ENTER PVP.

If the level cap is unlimited, people who don't focus all of their time into one char won't be able to get into groups. Sounds counter-productive for an MMO. It's stupid and pointless. 30-40 would be fine if they were going to push it up, but I'd keep it at 20. Perhaps 25 if they were planning bigger things.

Bigger e-peen as the OP mentioned.

Period.

Example:Non-linked title popularity before HoM.

Imo theres to much speculation on the lvl system to have a truly valid comment or opinion but I agree with most of what the OP has stated in terms of possible negative effects.

Trying to construct valid debate over speculation and tid-bits of non-confirmed info seems a bit pointless to me though as Anet have also stated they wish to continue with their "non-grind" philosophy which doesn't fit into the given hypothesis at all.

Also...things change and Anet Dev's often twist the truth when it comes to what will happen and what is actually put into action.It wouldn't surprise me if they did a total about face on much of the info they have released thus far.

infinite level cap is not only bad. its pure stupidity. instead of gameplay being based on skill, it would be based on how many time you cut school/work to grind levels into your chara just so you can say "ha! im lvl1337 and your lvl1336, you fail gg" might as well remove all skills and throw attribute points into a single sword, i mean, who would need a skill to do +200dmg if the 400dmg you do with normal attack auto-kills enemy? if they are going to raise lvl cap it should be no higher then 50. that allows balance plus a fair amount of levels, it all comes down to game design. one thing that really makes me hate a game is that point where you get past one part... then you start another part and you like... "wtf i gotta go grind for 4 hours before i can play the game i just bought!". if GW2 has an infinite level cap, or a cap that is something like lvl999, why even bother playing it if you dont have the time to max level? i for one would rather hear "your a noob cause your R4" then "you a noob cause im 2 levels higher then you!"...... Thats all i have to say about that.

mm, i guess many original gw players prefer that cap at 20, but when they make it higher, ppl might come from WoW & Lotro & warhammer online & ace of conan etc because overall most played MMos are with high lvlcap because ppl like lvling they characters.

I agree with the OP as well. And yes, I'm also one of those people who like to play on multiple chars. If it took so long to lvl and I felt I had to do so to even be able to get into groups or progress in the game, sadly I most likely would become bored and move on to other games.

Level won't be very important.

It would just add some armor and damage versus PvE monsters, it won't be considered in PvE.

It won't be as muh different as being able to show the number of skill points you have in GW1.

As far as grinding levels in PvE, as long as I'd be 1-3 levels below cap by the time I finish the main storyline, it can't be that bad to just grind out the other levels. GW2 will probably have a number of new ways to do things, so grinding may not necessarily be so grindy for the first few characters.

1. "Unlimited" leveling is impossible in a computer game. All values must have a cap. You can make the cap something very large like 65535, or even 4,294 967,296, but you can't have "unlimited." The computer can't understand "unlimited."

2. I do not see ANY benefit to having a longer leveling path. None. Does anyone remember leveling in D2? You'd spend about a week joining run games over and over to get to 85 so you could sink your skill/attribute points and put on your gear. You basically didn't play the game for that first week on each character. What a pointless waste. I don't want that back.

I dont really want the game to be about leveling, i dont mind it though just aslong there are some good quests.
I liked how the majority if factions and NF was for lv.20s and hope the devs will consider factiosn and NF while gw2 is being developed.

Guess we'll have to wait and see if Anet make a good job out of it, they could suprise us but until I see any examples i'm in favor of a set level cap.

Any higher than a level 50 cap and it would just turn into a grind fest like some of the other MMO's I liked the idea that skill is more important than level, it is what made gw different. To take away that aspect it would just be like any other mmo

Also you think rank segregation was bad in gw1, if there was no level cap....well people who don't play 24/7 or speed through everything would never get into good groups.

There will have to be a lot of content to satisfy each level group, i mean if there is no limit, then obviously at some point everything will become easy, and imo when something becomes so easy you hit level 50s and they die in one hit....well it just becomes boring.

Am I the only one who is okay with the infinite levels? :S

I would like an unlimited cap. It is anice to always have some room left for improvement, even it gets very hard at a certain point. With the current level cap, getting XP is almost useless. With an unlimited 'cap' you can continue to get rewarded for quests etc.

no im ok with it too.

infinite level cap is the same as saying "levels are pointless/there are no levels".

level does not have to translate into "power".

attributes and skill synergy is what determines "power" in GW.

MTG does not have levels and it works fine.

and infinite output or input does not exist granted but infinite series is no big deal.

If it doesnt screw the PvP gameplay, for me, it is fine.

Whatever, they should add higher XP rewards if they are planning to put a high level cap.

I'm also fine with the idea of an infinite level cap. I like watching my characters advance as they move through the game. I don't generally actively strive to grind out levels, but luckily, based on the information that has been given so far, I won't have to. It's nice to be playing in an area and suddenly you're a level higher, as opposed to "You have received a skill point that you will likely never notice is even there."

We already know that there is going to be a limit on the amount of power a person can gain through leveling. It has also been stated that Anet is trying to keep their anti-grind philosophy in mind (and before anyone says anything, I do believe they still have that philosophy, even in GW1. There is no significant grind that is compulsory). Further, there will be a sidekick system, where you can join a party and be boosted temporarily to the level of whoever your "mentor" is. And finally, almost all content will be designed to be able to be soloed. I suspect there will be elite areas at the end that it will be incredibly difficult or even impossible to do with a single person.

With all that, I think that those of you who are worried about the higher level cap because of grind and possible discrimination issues are concerning yourselves over nothing at all. If you run into someone who insults you for being a lower level, you have a few options; ignore them and play with friends, ignore them and go and find people who are a bit less inbalanced and insecure, or simply go and play the game solo. To me, it seems like Anet has taken this all into consideration and is trying to cater to the widest audience possible.

Of course, this is all speculation based on what I have read so far. It is always a possibility that the game will differ from what information has been released. As always, it'd be better to just wait and see when the game is released (or it goes into open beta at the very least).

To tell you the truth, I don't care about the level cap in the game. To me it's really just the graphics and the gameplay. Thats what the game is about. So if the level cap is around 5 billion then I wouldn't care, I would simply go to the highest level humanly possibly when for me is probably around 500-1000 since I get addicted to games very easily.

a low level cap is part of what makes GW great, imo. i don't give a crap about character development (is getting attribute points really all that exciting?), i just want to get max armor/weapons/skills and be on my merry way to enjoy more challenging areas of the game. i don't enjoy playing a noob character fighting noob monsters.

i don't see the point in gaining levels if you no longer get a benefit from them. just cap that sheiss so it doesn't turn into a level e-peen nightmare.

as a player with 10 pve chars and 4 pvp chars, i say a big fat NO to a high level cap. keep it friendly for those of us who like having multiple characters without having to mega-grind.

All the games I have played that have had no level cap tended to have 2 things in common.

The skills all topped out quite early and the points needed to get the next level became ever larger.

In effect the games became self capping because once you reached a certain point you were able to use all the skills in the game.
So all you gained were hit health and spell points.
The points needed to get to the next level were so high that it was pointless to keep going.

How this could work in gw2 with no cap would probably be the added damage duration healt gain or energy drain would top at some point and the player would reach the point of diminishing returns.

Play non stop for a week get to level 21 another month gets you lvl 22 a year gets you 23 and so on.

It was common practice in the early table top games where experience points to get from level 1 to level 2 was say 100 points while level 20 to level 21 was 1,000,000 points.

Who would ever concentrate play on one character to get a few more points than someone else when they could get 3 or 4 other characters to a reasonable level.

Personally hoping for no increase or maybe another 5 or 10 levels max.

Too soon too tell. High levels doesn't automatically mean being completely locked out from huge portions of the game. We don't know how aesthetic it'll be, if the gear cap follows the level cap, and likewise. If there is a cap reached in gear that is reached much earlier than the level cap, there won't be much of a problem thanks largely due to the sidekick system.

Regarding discrimination, it's a lost cause. There is nothing you can do to help it. If it's not one thing, it's another. If it's not a high level, it's a certain shield or armorset.

So, I'm not worried at all about the level cap. Just the gear cap. But all in all we need to know more about how it's going to work before we can judge upon it.

It depends, really, on what you all mean by "levels". Does max lvl (20/30/50, etc.) = max health? Armor?

Obviously, if they have no level cap, then you either start with max health/energy, or hit it fairly soon. So, what difference, then does "level" make?

As it currently stands, it simply gives me more points to acquire skills with. At lvl 20, I have all my attribute points to play with. I have max health. Armor was independent of level, so gaining XP was for: titles (Survivor); and to gain skill points. Aside from that, what did it do?

As long as infinite levels don't mean infinite grinding I see no problem.

No, you aren't, at least not in all points.

I'm for a level Cap at exactly 100 !! 100 is a fine number, gives players enough to do for developing their characters from total nobodies into mighty heroes or anti-heroes, as you could call otherwise "villains". But that stuff is an other story ...

All those people here whining about high level caps are just lazy bums. People, which don't want to give a shit piece of effort for their characters and would love to get put everything free into their asses in seconds after creation of the character, without having to do something for it. Such types of peple are it, which moan here about high caps and its disgusting to see that ever and ever and ever ... again.

A level Cap of 100 allows it the Devs to create much more interesting Character Development Systems, which include more, than just only reaching within 10 hours lvl 20 and choosing 2 professions as primary/secondary combination -.-

GW2's CDS needs alot more depth, than that one, GW1 had and can be only done, when the cap grts increased. More depth for a better CDS is just impossible with such a low Cap, like 20, because such a low cap offers simple not enough space for a real good CDS which should be a bit more complex and as said should simple have more depth, so that GW2 won't have again Wannabe-Professions, like Paragons &Co. which just look like retarded 3 in 1-Mixes from Kiddy-Wishes of Forum QQ'ers.

As long the Experience System gets balanced together with the CDS, there will be no grind. As long the game is filled later enough with good quests, that are realling rewarding and not a big joke, like 95% of GW'1s quests, we will level later in GW2 then quick enough, even the high levels - as said , as long we players will receive good enough Exp. so that we don't have to grind months over months monsters, just for +1 level or so.

When GW2's gamplay is later concepted like reaching level 100 with a character in 3 months, then this is good concepted - also alot better, than GW1, where you are lvl 20 in ~10 hours, if you're good -.-

3 months of effort for a maxed Character is not too much, its well paced for a MMO. With normal playing - making quests , missions, killing monsters, while doing quests/missions, or just doing other things, that give you Exp, 3 months will go quick over. Players which play alot would surely reach such a paced game in like 1-2 month(s). Around 3 months is paced on casual Gamers.

However, thats just my opinion about the Level Cap - when I buy then game, I want to have something to do with my characters over longer time, than just silly 10 hours to reach max level.
I want to see over a longer pace, then 20 levels, how my created characters changes from a Nobody into a mighty character and that step by step, to receive a better feeling about the progress of my character's live.
Thats it, what makes a RPG a RPG - the traditional gameplay elements. Masters don't fall from heavens, when your characters should become one day powerful, you've to train it and that over long time - only then you can be proud of your effort, once you reached the last level of performance of your character.

"Level" Discrimination will be ever there, just look at the difference between a level 1 Character and a level 20 character player in GW1 - its 100% the same -.- as when you comparise a level 50 chara with a level 100 chara. Same with people with too big e peens - people will find ever in games something, that lets they stroke their e-peens over others - in GW its titles, grind emotes, minipets, elite armors and just Wealth (pure money/ stacks or rare valuable stuff), the difference is only, that these e-peen things don't have direct effects on the characters, that make them mightier, over others, at least not direct *cough* lucky,wisdom,lightbringer and other rep titles *cough*

GW1 was a big fail of a trial&error game - GW2 will make now hopefully not the errors of the prequel again and concepts the failing concepts of GW1 better - one part of that overal concept is the Level Cap, which needs to be higher for better overall gameplay concepts later.

Plaxers just need later only enough to do content wise, that they will never need to grind over months repeatedly the same monsters for Exp - thats all to prevent GW2 to become an Asia Grinder - just a balanced Exp-System is the solution and with balanced in that point i mean absolutely sure not something similar, like Ragnarok Online, where it takes really months over months of excessive grindign, just to reach +1 level, due of needing like 94516751843758 more Exp for +1 Level

The most easy and best Exp System i've seen yet in a game was for example Final Fantasy 8 - there you've needed for every level just only 1000 Exp - every 1000 Exp = level up - the Game had a level Cap of 100, like all traditional RPG's...

Imagine such a System for GW2.

Monsters give 1-10 Exp (every 10 levels +1 more exp)/Kill, Quests say 50-500 Exp and Missions 500-1000, and leveling would go quick enough, but would by far take longer and more effort, than just silly ~10 hours

More simpler and effective can no Exp-System be. I don't know, why everythign in games must be ever in huge numbers, when small numbers can do the absolute same >.>

1. 2 word: Dinamic array.
A list that can be increased dinamically over time. Once a bytes are used, one more is added:
Exp{xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx,...}

2. They leveled in D2 because it was the ONLY way to earn the skill points and attribute points, in GW, you can do that also by questing or buying stars of transference. But once you hit level 20+2 skill points, you need only 15.000 exp to the next level, not a geometric progression like in D2.
What makes you think that we'll need 10 times the exp to the previous level to level up in GW2? What if it is also arithmetic progression once you hit a certain point?

GuildWars with a high level cap? Don't like the sound of that.
The current system is perfect, only thing they needed is a exp-title so those farming junkies can pose their 100.000.000+ XP and we're done with this irrelevant questions. Serious, the only reason why this leveling keeps popping up is because some like to pose how many (XP/Skill Points = lvl) they have.

to be honest the more information they release about GW2 the more I think its going to be a crappy grindfest that I want no part of.

yes anet no large level cap or long grind thats one of the main reasons i play GW. I don't want to spend all my time grinding to max level thats boring as hell.

I'm cool with raising the level cap to maybe 30, but definitely no large level cap. Even with the level cap at 20 there was already plenty of level discrimination - I don't want to have to grind my way to the top just to prove that I do, in fact, know how to play.

I wish Anet wouldn't touch the level cap. A big reason I bought the game was the low level cap. I'd tried many other MMOs and hated grinding in every one of them. I hated all the "Kill 6 boars and 12 spiders" quests. Guild Wars had none of that, which was great. Now that GW2 is attempting to emulate WoW, it's a big turn off.

I don't know where they found that "most players want a high level cap". Did they survey Everquest players or what? They certainly did not survey Guild Wars players.

I have an idea regarding infinite levels.
Now you gain attribute points until you reach level 20 and then just gain skill points.
Why doesn't A.net do the same in GW2 , except you also gain a level with that skill point too.