Level cap - GW2

(Or they could make game fun and deep at L1 and stay there.)

Its not really wrong correlation in world of MMOs. And especially when original GW is baseline.

Historically, leveling and assigned grind was way to inflate time it took to go through content to keep players busy and chasing carrot at minimal developer expense. We have seen devs to try different takes at "keep people busy by collecting points" grinds. 1+1.

And eliminate progression? No thanks. Character depth and growth is the largest reason I play RPGs.

A lot of these assumptions are centered around the belief that there will be nothing but grind in that reach to GW2's cap, if any at all. It took me forever to get to even 50 in Morrowind, but that was all through playing the game, killing baddies, ranking in guilds, blargh blargh LOTS of stuff.

Also, grind isn't a cheap and effective way to lengthen gameplay. It's a cheap and effective way to milk more cash out of the subscription fee. It essentially meaningless when there's no money to come out of it.

My wish: No level cap at all, leveling starts out quick and easy and gradually takes more and more XP and effort to get up. Additionally, after a certain level the rewards of leveling up should be significantly lower to keep the system somewhat balanced.

Progression does not have to be seeing numbers grow.

In GW, you are exposed to all kinds of progression:
* Get access to new area, new outpost.
* Get new skill
* Get new hero (unlock skills for heroes)
* Get that omgcool skinned weapon/armor.
* Get that elite mission statue

None of this intrinsically grants you more power or anything like that.

There is profound difference between new L20 character on new account and between veteran. And it has to do nothing with watching L get higher and higer and toon getting more powerful.

I doubt that a level-based system is necessary to progress and develop a player char.

EOTN and Nightfall already explored more or less horizontal ways of char development instead of adding more levels to the game. All GW expansions also featured short introductions and soon jumped into "level 20" content, which still gradually became harder.

If you are level 80 in WoW, you can solo raid bosses of level 60 content in Azeroth and do all level 60 dungeons all alone. Outland (61-70) is meaningless to you, too, except for some daily quests or dungeons were certain mounts or pets drop. Basically, your world did not expand, you are stuck in the 71-80 zone of Northrend and send your drops to a bank char who auctions your drops in the old low level world.

Now it is not true that I have much incentive to play Hard Mode Tyria again, I really have no idea why I should go to Ascalonian areas in Hard Mode again besides vanquishing.

But the general idea that all areas could still be somewhat meaningful to a max level char makes the world bigger. The idea is that some areas are still more challenging than others, but never outdated because mobs are just too low level to have any value or pose any kind of threat to the player.


GW has never been about vertical development. Our gear and stats are still 6-28 for axes, 15^50. The same for our attribute points. We got some extra skills, if they were cool and good for the game is another story.

For a GW style game levels are so insignificant that they could as well not exist. The game never had a level or gear progression, so I say it does not need them at all.



What they will do in GW2 is a different story, but unfortunately our information about GW2 is rather old and I did not hear anything new for ages.

Actually this is NOT how the models work that have higher levels. Higher levels equate to LESSER mobs the character can take on than they could at level 1. At level 1 I could kill 10 rats in a row in Everquest at level 50 I could barely kill 1 Ice Giant without needing a rest and mana regen. Also, there's no 1000pt damage for higher level characters. The level progression gives you more LIFE points with miniscule power/dmg increases. That is why I could no longer kill 10 things in a row at level 50, rather I could survive fighting a level 50 with more epic battles and more strategy and tactics required for that survival.

On the other hand Guild wars is a tinker toy and childs play when it comes to its maximum level until you play the ELITE areas. I can SOLO most of the game and take on multiple mobs the entire leveling process thru the game. This is one reason the economy is so borked because now any and everyone can pretty much do this easy soloing and gather up higher end goodies with hardly any effort at all. Yeah I guess carebears would love guild wars since it makes everything so simple, easy to aquire and you can do it in two days. lol

The other thing leveling does is separates players by not only skill, but, power as well. I don't want some noob who someone power leveled in 2 days up there in the elite areas with me who doesn't know what he's doing. GW2 is going to be a PERSISTANT world, totally different from the norm of now and I'd rather not see these snot nosed 8-10 year olds up there in the higher end areas until they have earned that right. It's a lot harder and longer to powerlevel someone to 100 than it is to 20. Oh I know they will eventually make it there anyways, but, at least it will take a lot longer and thus I can enjoy that time a lot more. That's why I'm really hoping that leveling is nice and slowwwwwww. I remember when it took weeks sometimes to make it from 30 to 31 in Everquest. I'd really like to see leveling experience in that avenue.

I'd also like to see stronger death penalties. Just losing a % of your power is too easy and is too much like save and reload in rpg games offline. I want some persistant death penalties so people can't go willy nilly all over the place without thinking about the consequences.

Of course I know there will be carebear wah wahing over what I would like to see, but, I really don't care. I believe in change and we've had the carebear GW game, now it's time to make one that is more challenging, players can be more powerful and the economy doesnt get borked by Anet by reducing items to 100gp that eventually sold for 17gp each. Talk about throwing money into the economy that shouldn't be there (ectoes when they had the economy reset).

They already made that game it's called Guild Wars, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North. We no longer need a romper room game. Now it's time for them to make a real progressive rpg game that takes months or years to reach maximum potential instead of a FEW HOURS.

Yes and this sounds promising from my point of view. This is more of what "I" want. I really don't know why people are asking GW2 to be GW1 all over again. It's not gonna be that's for sure. Many things are changing. More levels, more power, more soloability less headaches and complaining about hero and henchie ai. Lots of leveling and power and still the ability for a low level to play with high levels but they just won't get all the power of a high level and can at least still play in higher level areas so they won't whine about jimmy plays 24/7 and I can only play 1 hour a day and I don't get as much stuff as jimmy for that 1 hour and I should! wah wah. lol

i'd like a system where the attribute points max out at a relatively low level, like 20. characters that progress past that get points that they can invest in fun things like battle scars, jewelry, rank insignia or braids or things like that.

basically, anyone could quickly make a fully functional character that looks like a marine recruit. but as it is played longer, it gets more 'personality' and unique looks. (a bit like the pvp-character vs. pve-character thing we have now)

in that case i would be against any level cap

How large should a vehicle's gas tank be?

Same kind of question - it depends how fast you go through it. 100 levels can take forever, or a day or two, depending how large they are. Thus there's no meaning to trying to work out an answer.

In real life it takes TIME to aquire EXPERT SKILLS or MASTER SKILLS. You can't goto the store and BUY your skills. Thus it should be this way as well in the game. TIME EQUATES TO SKILL OVER TIME should be the equation not SKILL > TIME.

Think of it this way what if everyone could EASILY goto a store and buy a doctors/lawyers degree (no skills being a doctor or lawyer just buy the skills and then practice on YOU, YOU or YOU and see if you survive or goto jail) how would you like that then? We'd also have such an influx of doctors and lawyers their pay scale would drop like a rock in the sea and everyone of them would be making minimum wage. So down with socialism in games. Russia tried it and failed and it fails in games as well. Bring on CAPITALISM.

I don't think there is a problem with not having a level cap, so long as a high level character is almost virtually the same stat-wise as a low level character.

Noone gets to be doctor or layer by just sinking time in repetitive mindless tasks (= easy grind) either.

And i find hit hilarious how you keep claiming that "highlevels" would make stuff challenging yet you whine about DOA being challenging. Or how you think that 11 year olds wont polute highlevel areas (hint: who actually has time to level? Not smart or mature or older people, they are busy doing other stuff than playing)

Also, having to take breaks after highlevel mobs? Funny, I never ever had to take breaks while quest mob grinding (WoW till L52, quit after that, booored). Maybe you sucked at playing? Hell, even duration of fight and rough amount of 1,2,3 presses, all was the same as on L1.

You must be one of those 10 year olds she was talking about. You seem to forget the retirement age or the homebound types (wheelchair and disabled) who play these games as well. I'm well over 10 years old and have all the time in the world to play this game or any other game if I choose. Best think before you leap next time on a subject matter. We oldies like to play these games as well and some of us have just as much time as powergamers do.

I am placing my bets that Guild Wars 2 will have a model similar to WoW's....grind out your max level until you are required to buy the next expansion which increases the cap.

oh yes and with age comes the gift of patience and as they say rome was not built in a day

Considering guild wars is based off a reachable level cap with no grind, it should stay that way. Recently, I haven't had a lot of free time to do much and I wouldn't use it to do pointless grinding. Guild Wars was designed so that the "casual" player could be just as powerful as the hardcore gamer, as long as they know how to play.

Even a limitless level cap seems to be questionable if the stat bonuses flatten out over time. Hardcore grinders will still be able to gain the advatange and you know this will encourage bots.

The problem here is that Guild War's level design was based off of a PvP game. They wanted everybody to be on equal footing for PvP purposes, not for PvE purposes. In PvE, players generally enjoy being able to level up and power up their characters, so I strongly believe that is the direction they will go in 2.

I do not enjoy "leveling up and powering up characters". Lots of people in this thread expressed similar notion.

GWs PvE with PvP game rules was success. It gave us gameplay that can't be found anywhere else. Skills and skill types that just would not exist without PvP influence (prot for monks for example). Casual friendliness without necessary dumbing down gameplay. Balance updates that kept game from being stale.

Aparently, age no longer causes people to become wise and instead of stating their opinions and objections in tactfull way, they rather flame out like those proverbial 10 year olds.

Anyhow, does not invalidate my main point related to that quote - that Leveling and related stuff wont keep stupid people out and grant Red Knights "elite, noob free experience".

Powergamer != Good player.
Player able to level nonstop != Player with seal of approval of Red Sonya.

That's fine, but I don't think that opinion represents the general PvE player. Judging by the types of PvE games that do well, we see that the general PvE player likes to level and power up their character.

I agree with you (mostly). I just think Anet is really going to change their model for Guild Wars 2. I don't think PvP will have ANY influence whatsoever on PvE next time around.

Fraid you are wrong in your equation or how you stated it.

Powergamer != always good player is more correct.

But, majority of time it does. I've played mmorpgs since Ultima Online and I know powergaming and powergaming players and the majority of them are good players the only real bad ones are the ones that got powerleveled and that's completely different from a power playing gamer. So, don't confuse powerleveing with powergaming. Makes you look silly.


Apparently you don't live by your own values. Also, WOW isn't the only mmorpg game out there and all games designs aren't patterned after it in the way they play. Obviously you never played UO, EQ or DAOC.

I agree with this. I enjoy PvE more than PvP (unless PvP is integrated as part of PvE, like EVE) and you need levels or some form of character progression similar to this for PvE to be legit. I honestly think GW2 NEEDS to be more of a cross between GW1 and more popular MMORPGs (WoW, LOTRO, etc) to be able to compete in the market. The problem many of my friends have with GW1 is that there is simply not enough to do - PvE, PvP, Farm, Hunt Skills, not much else. They want a GW experience that includes skill based crafting, more armor options, Unique items need to be UNIQUE, meaning YOU CANNOT REPLICATE THEM WITH MODS, and more character progression through levels to prevent newer players from interfering with players who have earned there position/location. This is even more prevalent in a persistent world. High end items, drops, etc need to be for the players willing to work for them and if we don't put some sort of limit, such as levels, then newer players with no desire to put the time and effort into earning such items/weapons/armor(we need armor drops, too and multi-class armor) will have that same access and the economy in GW2 will disintegrate just like in GW1.

Also, keep in mind that Anet and NCsoft are businesses and have to think about bringing in new players in addition to bring GW1 players over to GW2. They're worried about making money more than pleasing fans and EVE is the ONLY MMO that is successful and doesn't use a level system, but it still takes an incredibly long time to get anywhere in that game(skill-wise) just like other MMOs.