I was pondering this last night, every expansion that raised the cap has only raised it 10 levels. Would SoE be better off releasing expacks that raised the cap more than that? Granted this would either require more content(desirable) or the same amount of content progressing in level faster (not as desirable). Just curious as to what everyone else's opinion is.
No. Rationale: Consider this - content greys out and becomes completely irrelevent after 10 levels. The majority of players are at level cap. It takes a relatively short period of time to level 10 levels (mileage will vary based on playtime, character ability, player ability, etc). Any expansion with a 20 level cap increase would need to create 20 levels worth of content, the first 10 levels of which would be irrelevent to the majority of players in a very brief span of time. Ten-level cap increases have the potential to hold player interest for up to two years, if done correctly. Twenty-level cap increases have about the same potential with twice the production requirement. Likely the only thing preventing 5-level cap increases instead of 10 is the existing spell/ability structure.
Yea, I guess the question is why would you WANT a 20 level increase? It serves no purpose. How often do you find people going back to run Nest of the Great Egg? Blackscale Sepulchre? Halls of Fate? Crypt of Valdoon? Those are all within 20 levels of the current cap. Just doesn't make any sense.
Skywarrior wrote: i'm neither for or against the idea, just looking for opinions. But let me play devils advocate. With SoEs shift towards instances most could scale throughout those 20 levels, Also, it could be used as a marketing tactic for the expansion (now with TWENTY! more levels of play!!). Also, depending on the health of the game it could be used to squeeze more content in before the next big MMO comes out (as I doubt Eq2 will be able to support itself as long as eq1 has). Eq2 can go up to 200 and whether it was put that high so SoE doesn't have to worry about hitting tech limitations or if it is/was a goal is unknown. However if it is a goal it will likely never be reached with the way they increase the cap. SoE also wants Velious to be HUGE and fresh, so adding more than 10 levels could help further that goal.
I honestly don't think this would make anyone happy. Equipment you start off with would be completely useless in about 13 levels. That means mid-expansion you would have to stop leveling and start scrounging for equipment that you know your going to outgrow and replace when you get another 7 levels. 10 levels isn't really that hard of a grind. In about a month you have a good population of max tier characters again and the real exploration of instances and raid zones begins. With 20 levels, it would take a lot longer for that population to set up. Sure, you'd still have some people there in two weeks. Maybe even entire raid guilds, but I doubt even that. Mostly you'd have partial raid forces ready at 100, and a bunch of people desperately trying to catch up that just don't have as much time. For the more casual players, your looking at about 3 months. Why not 2 months for 20 levels when you can do 10 in one? Simply because its easier to group up when everybody is doing the same content two or three times (for alts). With people spreading out over a larger amount of content, you'll have less grouping going on as time goes by. Honestly, this just isn't a good idea. If you really wanted something like this to happen, it would be better if SOE chose to do a 10 level increase every year instead of every two years which is the current pattern. Personally, I'm happier with the level increase every two years as it gives more time for the top tier play to mature with the second expansion.
I'd rather see them focus their full strength on one good solid tier of content at a time. Adding 2 tiers will require them to spend extra time coming up with stuff for that extra 10 levels, and it would ultimately detract from the end-game material, which is where everyone will eventually find themselves. The more stuff there is to do at the level cap, the more staying power the game will ultimately have.
PinChaser wrote: I think it would be a poor one. While some existing players may find it appealing, I think most would agree with the negatives brought up in this thread. Plus, from the perspective of a new player, they'd be looking at starting a 110 level grind - that's got to look like a turn off, 90 is high as it is in my opinion. One tier of solid content at a time is enough.
Why 20 more levels wouldn't be good was already posted. Personaly I would prefer if SOE squeezed a new tier into 5 levels and make 2x 5level increasments insteed of one 10level and one without. 5 levels wouldn't make the current top tier completly useless. It would make the current top tier easier (orange mobs become yellow / yellow mobs turn white / blue) for people who didn't finish the current content yet and would still add new content.
Meirril wrote: Bizzarely, that sounds like a good reason to do it. Might in some way stop the usual grind to cap in 2 weeks, do 2 months of top level content and then moan about being bored for the other 10 months of the year. Not that I do that, in fact I doubt I'll be buying the expansion straight away as I have too much to do in those 'lower' levels that everybody seems to ignore.
Absolutely not. 10 levels is bad enough and puts the game out of reach that much more for a new player, 20 would only make that worse and accelerate the level of attrition that we are seeing currently.
I'd rather it raise the it 0 levels. We're getting no new spells, why raise the levels? Just build whatever itemization progression you want and add new content. 10 more levels is just artificial progression at this point.
Atan@Unrest wrote: I see it as more of a reset button on the itemization, but that only works if they can convince(force) people to give up thier OP T8 stuff. It also raises the soft cap on stats making that more usful on items again... for about 20mins. Though personally I am a supporter of wider not taller content addtions myself. I understand why there is a group that wants the cap increased.
I'd rather see it raise 5 levels and make each of those levels require the exp of 70-80 that way we don't have everyone at level cap 5 days after the expansion.
Atan@Unrest wrote: How about because no lvl increase expansions suck. There are only so many ways to make a progression RPG harder. Kill level increases and you end up with very little options. You can just give mobs a crapload of hp to scale with higher gear dps (like EoF), or you can 'invent' a new mechanic that makes old defense irrelvant (like crit mit in ToS), or add a ton of timed cures and fail conditions (which everyone loves) Personally I loved the leveling and raiding of every lvl increase expansion so far and the non lvl increase expansions I found annoying. I still play, and will continue to do so, but it just seems the no lvl increase just ended up in more 'creative' (read: annoying and badly executed) ways to make content more difficult in comparison to a lvl increase. DoF was fun, KoS was fun, EoF raiding was horrid, RoK was fun, ToS was annoying... so I'm pumped about the lvl increase personally, and it's anything but 'artificial progression'. It is in fact... ACTUAL progression. They've been making us take on orange mobs in raid zones for 2 years now. You are out of your mind if you don't realize that T8 zones and raids which range lvl 83-85 (not counting munzok) won't still be done when they are green and blue. How many 2 groups will do VP for mythical updates? How many MORE people will be able to clear ToMC at lvl 90? Etc...
PinChaser wrote: I would rather see more content spread across these 10 new levels, than I would to have 10 more levels. No matter what they do, if they add 10, or 20 levels, you will always have that "special group" that do nothing but play 24/7 to get to the level cap, then they sit there for the next 6 months or year, ragging on how SoE sucks and there is nothing to do. You know it will happen, it happens every time, LOL. So I would say, add way more content, especially solo content, to keep people busy, and give them a reason to keep on playing, well after they reach level cap. At 80, sitting there doing never ending shard runs, is getting to be a waste of time and money. Just sitting there watching chat roll by, isn't enough any more. It gets to be nothing more than a glorified chat room, I pay $15 a month for. So, imho, more content, not more levels.
Pauly@Befallen wrote: I thought that w/ RoK also would of been better if they raised the cap to 75 and kept EoF gear usefull. But with TSO I'd much rather see them make it obsolete so I have no reason to go back to ToMC Palace or YIS ever again.
Raising the level cap by 20 levels would mean the developers would need 2 years to develop the content. Nothing would change except that we'd have one less expansion we could have had. If they try to develop 20 levels worth of content in one year, the expansion would suck. All the zones would shoehorn all the players into them. There's likely only be one zone for each level range, with no variety.
Cusashorn wrote: With TSO they developed 0 levels worth of content in one year and it still sucked. Although I would be all for a 20 level expansion increase in a game where the developers had the resources and talent to pull it off, unfortunately this is not the game. At this point I sincerely doubt SoE can make an entertaining expansion period.
Atan@Unrest wrote: /agree Although I think some of TSO gear is too powerful, I think it will be nice to reset everyone's status and level the playing field... I kind of like what WoW is doing, by raising the level cap just 5 levels, that's kinda cool.
