For your consideration, ArenaNet (level cap in GW2)

I understand why ArenaNet is making the game more like World of Warcraft; they want to draw in the WoW players (even though most WoW players either don't care about Guild Wars or hate Guild Wars for being different), but Guild Wars was never meant for that kind of player, it was meant to be a game that you could play without grinding, that you could play to play, with friends. I wonder if ArenaNet plans to tell us what their new developer vision is and where they decided to abandon the original Guild Wars philosophy.

Personally I feel that the high level cap/removed level cap is another symptom of the death of Guild Wars, right up there with multiple races and persistent areas.

I would actually like a much higher level cap, but with very minimal benefits for each level obtained past a certain point (e.g. add one health for each level obtained above the equivalent of level 20, possibly add one point to base damage for every ten levels obtained above level 20, etc.).

That way people that are into developing their characters get the satisfaction of doing so, but those that reach that "plateau" (e.g. level 20) really won't have any sort of material disadvantage by not "grinding" to those higher levels.

Low (20) level cap is good. Unlimted or high level cap creates elitism. Granted, even if you don't gain any benefits past level x, we will still get "looking for lvl 34636+ to do the mission".
Sure, there may be no difference between level 1000 and 20 but hey, tell that to GW players, especially PUG tards.

i would love achieving max level in GW2 to take about 3 times as long as it did in NF, or twice as long as in proph (factions takes 5 hours, no challenge at all).

the actually number means nothing, just how long it takes to get there

a level cap of 20 worked for gw1. but for gw2 the game might be set up in a way that 100 levels works. with fun content all the way trough not just grind killing. most of the people that want level 20 or low level cap are the people who think the only way to have fun in an online game is to get to max level in a week or less, then go trough fun content. would it not just be better if while leveling you went trough a bunch of fun content? a higher level cap allows for more said content. with all the systems there talking about a higher level cap would not even be that bad. (i.e the if a higher level and a lower level are in the same party, the lower level can fight at a higher level )

Everyone is complaining about the level cap being to high and making people not want to focus on other characters. That's already happened with Eye of The North. I don't even bother with other characters because I don't want to have to raise there reputation points again and going through Eye of The North just puts me to sleep.

It is my understanding that the level will be adjusted according to the players in a group when you enter a PvP area or the "big world" so levels will not really matter like in GW1

All this talk about levels amuses me - especially when people try to compare WoW to GW.

It amuses me because some people seem to have the idea that "levels" are some sort of universal unit of measurement like "hours" or "kilometers". So they think that WoW must be better than GW because WoW has more levels - or that GW2 is better/worse than WoW because it has more/less levels.

But, levels are not fixed units. They are whatever the game writers want them to be. Let me put it this way. As you play through GW you get to a point where you get maxed out at level 20. Let's say, at this point you have AL 80 armor and do 80 HP damage per attack (just examples, not necessarily actual figures). Well, what difference would it make if they called it level 60 and at that point you have AL80 armor and do 80HP damage? (other than that you'd get many smaller increases in your "level" as you level-up.)

Also, what difference does it make if you are a level 20 facing level 24 monsters, or level 60 facing level 72 monsters? And what difference would it make in GW2 if you went to "level 80" but it only took you 2 days to do it (like it now does for level 20)

In the long run, the number of levels is merely the number of steps it takes to get to the "max" level, which is just an arbitrary armor/HP/damage level anyway.

Personally, I would like GW2 to have more "levels" because I'd prefer that leveling up take a bit longer. (Actually, it wasn't too bad in Prophecies, but leveling was way too short in later campaigns/expansions.)

In short, what's important is how long it takes to get to any particular level, what stats you have at that level, and what the stats are of the enemies you'd face.

P.s. Since levels are just arbitrary numbers, the poll is pointless.

But what about alienation in PvE? PvP is still on a playing field but nobody wants to be left out simple because they can't grind to a certain level. Ursan proves grind /= skill.

I don't know yet, I have only read as much about it as anyone else can.
We don't even know what system they are going to use and allready bitching about it, no wonder they won't release any early info.

I don't see why we complain about gw2 when we have BARELY info of it.

I don't care about the unlimited level cap because i'm sure Anet will put a "max level" for attributes

You don't know how levels will work in GW2, and since if you join in a party with a higher.level character you'll get buffed accordingly, friends with higher levels will always be good.

Remember that they are designing it so pople won't get out teams for being at low levels.

Level will mostly show time played rather than character development.

I want a bigger level cap I would be more than happy for a cap at level 50.

if you can not accept that after 3 years things change, then do us all a favor and just don't buy guild wars 2. that way you won't have to mess it up for other people just cuz "its not the old guild wars that was so fun 2-3 years ago", but might i suggest staying in gw1 with all the other people who will whine till it turns back to what it was at release.

multiple races are good cuz it gives leveling a new character a feeling of something beyond just leveling a new class, given they all have there own starting / small leveling area.

persistent areas are good cuz they give more of a chance for player interaction then is present in the current system.

higher level cap means that by the time you get to max level you more then likely know how to play you class well. (also due to systems the'v already talk about level really dose not matter much)

just cuz you don't like a feature of a game, plz don't think that directly means it is bad for the game. I know not everyone likes this stuff in games, but they are major selling point for most people. and without them what is the point of gw2 and not just another expansion?

I never really cared for high levels unless there are benefits for it. Still waiting on Anet for more info on GW2 about that. For now I'll vote level 20 as it seems fine in GW.

I would prefer to have a higher level cap, just because it is way to easy to reach maximum level currently. But, having an unlimited or insanely high level cap would lead to grind fests.

I would like a slightly higher cap, ie up to 30-40.

GW has thrown a few too many of its original values out the window, this is a big one id like to see stick around.

Level # really means nothing. It all depends on the exp rewarded for kills, quests, missions. I would love to have a longer storyline, and as long as I'm near the top lvl at the end, regardless of actual #, I'm happy. Any remaining could quickly be gained in the wealth remaining content.

If there is a needlessly high or unlimited lvl cap, there damn well be better rewards for gaining lvls than skill points.

i really think we need a higher lvl cap for char development i mean getting to the max lvl in about 8 hours getting through the story line in a day or 2 then its year on year farming nothing else what fun

It's about debating the pros and cons of possible new features and the effect they may have on the core GW philosophy and play style.

Your effectively saying "Just shut up and deal with it" rather than discuss it.

Ummmm....nah....

I'm kind of neutral on this one. I'd like to have a higher level cap than 20 since it's so easy to get to, but I don't want to have to grind for hours to get to the highest level or have an unlimited cap.

Now if there is a high level cap or none at all and it's as easy to get to as level 20 is now, then that is no problem to me. But if it's another grind-fest, I'll get easily bored with one character and start another and get bored again.

And I'm getting kind of bored with the game now because there's hardly anything left to do and if there is it requires skilled people, which are hard to find since my guild and alliance are always off doing their own things. So...yeah.

sorry if that's what it comes off as, but what i am trying to say is that if people really don't like that gw2 might not be the same as gw1 in some ways, why not just stick with gw1?

yes some things in gw are good, but if anet sticks too much to what guild wars is now then why bother makeing guild wars 2 and not just another expansion?

Whether you gave it a poll or not, this is a GW2 idea, and should be place in the sticky topic for GW2 ideas.

I agree with most of what the OP why have an unlimited cap then many players will start discriminating other players who's lvl is lower.

Level caps are a bad idea generally, no matter if low or high. High cap is essentially the same as low, it just takes more time. The general effect remains the same - hit the cap and immediately lose the incentive to play and the fun factor that comes from developing your character.

It is possible to make a game with infinite character development while still keeping the anti-grind policy and I believe that's what they're going to do with GW2. And I will absolutely love it when they do so, it will be far better than any other game out there, if done right.

The key is making the power level gains from levels and equipment after a certain point to get smaller and smaller so the character that played for 1000 hours is only going to be slightly more powerful than one played for 200 hours.

Unlimited levelling done right:
*doesn't mean huge power level gaps between casual and hardcore players.
*also doesn't mean pointless numbers going up with no effect on gameplay.
*doesn't mean super high numbers - it can be kept 2-digits!
*doesn't mean grinding! At all! It's just a matter of right design choices.

It can be done right but no MMO did it right so far. GW2 may be the first one! Not a clone but a step further, a new generation.

I highly disagree, developing your character is striving for that next set of Obs armor or getting that perfect screenshot of Mallyx's dead body the week DoA came out. Both these things require max levels in the current playing environment.

Plus, I believe GW 1, aka prophecies, had a tagline something along the lines of "All it takes is skill". Elitism shouldn't be about having lvl 1337, but about being able to [Psychic Distraction] every single enemy res sig.

The only advantage higher skill caps bring is marketing IMO

An updated graphics and game engine.

The difference is that the level cap is a core element which defined the over all play style of GW1.GW2 being new doesn't dictate they have to change core elements, many of which made the game as popular and successful as it is.
The success of GW1 says your wrong.Mission and storyline progression work.

Having a level cap takes the focus off leveling and places it on exploring while demanding an increase of skill to access content as opposed to the fact you haven't killed ten thousand of a certain type of mob in a certain level specific area.

That's GW, and it has worked and been hugely successful for 3 years.

The only motivation I can see for a no level cap is to keep players grinding and to copy the competition.You also have to motivate people to attain levels hence power tiers or player segregation will be a direct component of any high level system, both of which are bad for the game.

They have to be both desired and have some component of reward to the player.They also have to segregate a player who is level 70 from someone who is level 60.Even if it's a text based number floating next to your name and no more it will still create player segregation.

You just can't get around that with high-level caps.

GW is one of the few options outside the atypical MMO structure.Why they want to become a WoW clone baffles me.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/GW2

explains all we know for now

The GW1 model is not a good model for a MMO, it was designed for a game to be played through once and with balanced PvP as the endgame.
This can't work for a true MMO, oped-ended and designed for great replayability. They know that well and so they're making GW2 in a different way - no more having to reach max level for the fun to start (and character development stop at the same time), instead there will be fun AND character development all the time.

And they never said anywhere they 'want to become a WoW clone', actually they said exactly the opposite.

A high or even an unlimited levelling system doesn't mean the game has to be just another MMO clone. There's plenty of room for innovations, but developers of other mmorpgs stick to the same model, the one I and most of us don't want to see in GW2. It can really be different, much better than that, let's only hope Anet devs know that and want to explore the possibilities.

ok well the level thing is not even that big to me. we don't even really know much about it at this point.

my main point (back on the post you quoted) was more so meant to address Zahr Dalsk saying that multiple races and persistent areas are things that will kill guild wars.

So you missed the bit where they sold 4 million copies and released an additional two campaigns plus an expansion?

The GW1 model is hugely successful.

They simply don't need to change it, if anything it will be counter-productive as they will just be another generic MMO clone.

As for character development GW was never meant to target people who wanted that.There are a plethora of MMO's out there than cater to that audience and do so well but much of GW's success is directly related to it not having that component in it's game play.

If you want in depth character development it's best to go else where as I do.When I want a quick fix of fun without that hassle I play GW.

I agree that I'm also keen for some new innovations and ideas but you really can't ignore the repercussions and effects non-cap level mechanics have on an MMO.

The examples are already easily found and you really can't change the core mechanics of leveling = reward and/or increase in tier power.

The two are symbiotic.