Raise the Level Cap (reset method)

[bogus]

Go play something else, you just wanted to change everything that makes AoC unique. And no increasing level cap won't be winner, it will be death of AoC. Blizzard needs 1.5 year to develop expansion with enough content. Funcom would need 10 years.

AoC is going to be dead not because of not increased level cap, but because not existing development time.

[Iam5not8]

1) Funcom dedicates few resources to AoC
2) AoC has some specifics that makes this game appealing.

If AoC becomes a Flavor of WoW, better to taste the original aka WoW, and WoW benefits from far bigger resources.

I would prefer Funcom to focus on 1) revamp crafting 2) unchain the existing content including the tier 1 & 2

Maybe Funcom should include some achievements to give some sense of progression .
On the other hand, at the guild level I'd like to see renown levels uncapped.

[lmagowz]

Raising level cap force people spend more time in game and spend more time on different alt characters. BUT it can work if they have worthing rewards and don't have major problems in game mechanic. Raising level cap in AoC will be too late and only hurt player community even more.

[ckirmser]

I am far from reaching any sort of cap-level, so I guess I'll see what the hoopla is all about when I get there.

However, it seems to me that levels are rather easy to come by.

I started refereeing D&D in 1974 when a friend photocopied the single page pull-outs from his copy of the game - the game was 10 bucks, at the time, and that was exorbitant for the day. It took me about six months to save up the $10 and get my own copy.

Anyway, the tables of experience levels only went to, like, 7-10, or so. There were no experience points listed for higher levels, so we had to extrapolate. Looking at the progression, it seemed that the points for succeeding levels were double that of the prior level. So, it was exceedingly rare for someone to hit 20th level, my arbitrary "level cap."

In reading posts here and in the premium threads, it seems that the game doesn't really start until one hits 80. Even at easy leveling, that's a long way to go.

Perhaps if it were difficult to increase a level, but more than just hack and slash to get there, more life could be breathed into the game.

Maybe if players could become leaders of guilds - not like those in the game, but like something from Baldur's Gate. In that game, my thief was able to become leader of the thieves guild. He had underling NPCs who would go off and do their thing, giving part of the take to the guild - hence, me.

Something from UO might be nice. In UO, conversations aren't tree-based, but are keyword-based. Use a keyword near an NPC and he'd respond according to how his conversation set dictated. For instance, one could say, "job," and an NPC might respond that they'd like an escort to some nearby town. Or, "dragon," and, if an NPC with the proper keyword set was near, he would tell the tale of that dragon making off with the village sheep, launching a quest to kill the dragon.

There are other things that could be done.

Let players open businesses. Let a player open a tavern hiring NPC wenches and barmen, where he can actually turn a profit from PC or NPC clientele. Given AoC's rating, how 'bout a brothel? An armory, etc.

In UO, you can find interactive chess boards where players can sit and play chess. Once, in a tavern, I came across two players having a strange conversation. I watched for a while and saw that they were playing D&D with their avatars sitting at a table. It was fascinating. There's even a place with a stage and a few ambitious players put on a play from Shakespeare one night while other players gathered and watched.

If there were more to do than, "find boss, kill boss, take stuff," I think the game would perk up tremendously. Put more "RP" into the MMORPG.

But, don't take me wrong; I am still quite taken with the game.

[Joalis]

While I understand the initial knee-jerk reaction to a level-cap raise, everyone - even those opposed - continue to provide reason why it should happen.

It would invalidate the current gear, you say. Yes, exactly the point. The current gear is one of the mega flaws of the game. Veterans who have had time to grind the months and possibly years of time it takes to get full Khitai / T4 gear are now capped out and have nothing more to progress with in PvE - and are superior in every way to the newer players. Same thing for PvP, but much more visible to a new player who gets stomped. The PvP gear rebalance patch helped, but didn't solve the issues in gear imbalance and veterans vs newer players. This is not a problem for a game that has no future (possibly AoC), but if Funcom wants to see this game grow, then they have to respect the fact that new players need an opportunity to get caught up in a reasonable amount of time.

Yes, the current gear would be less useful because new gear would be better. Would that alienate your population? I sure as hell hope not. Why would old players with max gear be mad that they had content available to progress their character further? That sounds like a win to me, and my character was created in June of 2008. I don't believe it should make existing gear useless (the way WoW and Rift level increases did), but it should make dungeon or crafted gear from level 85 have a value to compete with the best gear obtained at level 80. That would keep level 80 content valid, but not "mandatory". As long as you balance it out.

My vision for gear would be like this:

Level 80 raid gear has like 5-7 stats, but less focused on specific areas.
Level 85 crafted gear has 2-3 stats, but is much higher values and has more budget.
Level 85 dungeon blues has 3-5 stats, but isn't as easy to customize as crafted gear, but gives the hit rating that crafted gear might be missing so you can actually do level 85 raids.
Level 85 raid gear would have the same stat style as the level 80 gear, but would obviously have a slightly higher budget.

Level 85 PvP gear will require PvP levels to wear and PvP currency earned only at level 85 to purchase, so a PvP 10 won't be be able to "suit up" as soon as they hit that level. They still have to spend time gaining currency through actual PvP (Bori will not give PvP currency for level 85). At the same time, PvP 0 level 85 gear would be nearly as good as PvP 10 gear at level 80. Within 1-2% of the stat totals, but still not better. Once you get the 2nd tier of PvP gear at level 85, the stats are better than PvP 10 - but only 1-2% better. Max gear at level 85 would be only 5-10% max better than level 80 PvP 10 gear.

PvP XP gains at level 85 would need to be greatly increased to reduce the time it takes to gain PvP levels while earning currency @ the level cap. While at the same time Bori will still be there for the PvE way to get PvP levels. It doesn't eliminate the method, but because currency is required from 85 PvP (OW, or Mini-games) then you can only gear up as fast as you're able to earn currency.

Would re-using existing and irrelevant content for an expansion be a blow to the AoC community? I hardly think making Ymir's Pass, Thunder River, and Turan worth your time would be a blow to the community. In fact, their current incarnation is a blow to the community because only a tiny fraction of a % of people even bother to venture into those zones. I only did when I was leveling up a new alt just so I could get some new flavor. I don't suggest removing the current version of the content, but make a second "epic" version with max level quests.

How about AA. Well, if you leave AA available to level 80+ and give players a massive XP bar to fill between each level from 80 to 85, then leveling to max level will earn players -- just by doing the in-game content -- a heap of AA. Why is that good? Because it makes AA accessible to your casual players. AA is currently accessible only to the hardcore grinding players. It was easier to get early on because there were sooooo many loopholes and exploits that made grinding AA fast. Now those are fixed, but the AA curve is extreme and causes players to be at a severe disadvantage. Giving 5 more levels to earn that also contribute towards earning AA will greatly level the playing field. You don't have to have max AA to be competitive. It takes like 25-30 points spent in the right AA to be competitive (resists, CC breaks, specific class powers, and various utilities).


Let's talk PvP for a second. I realize this game has gone away from PvP in the sense of it's original form, but many of the reasons why that happened has to do with the current status quo. Competitive PvP is missing from the game. Gear is part of the reason. AA is the other part (possibly the bigger part). Making the level cap increased to even out those issues will bring players back. They'll have content to explore (even if it's reused), and new opportunities to get gear and AA that help towards being competitive.

Is this a pipe-dream? Probably. However, if Funcom is actually considering a new raid, I think they should re-consider keeping the same level cap. How many tiers of raid content, gated by the previous raid content, until your new players feel so far behind they can never catch up? The answer is: 3. So we're already at that point. New players, if you polled them as they joined, will likely reply that T4 is almost inaccessible, and a new T5 dungeon that requires a mix of Khitai and T4 raid gear to be allowed to enter seems like an extreme beyond anything the hopeful new player could expect to accomplish.

How many guilds farm T1-2 raids for gear? They farm T2 for shards, but rarely for gear. How about T3? Is that still being done actively? Why bother when Khitai gear is mostly better, and T3 gear doesn't help prepare you for T4 raids as well as Khitai gear (which is actually a good thing because it does help make T4 more accessible to new players).

I just feel like this is the point where raising the level cap makes the most sense for this game. If the development is there to actually work on the game and make a future for AoC.

[Mysticblood]

All the decent mmos I've played that are well balanced have increased level cap with each xpac. Lots of talk ppl saying resets r fastest way to lose members but it's the nature of mmos. Fun coma decision to broaden the classes and scarp linear progression has made an already gear based game even more unbalanced. I would rather spend another grinding another five levels than grinding six months just to catch up to everyone else. I'm all for this idea

Ya you know what it sucks coming back a year later and finding out or gear means nothing, but it's fun to catch up to speed.

[Anubium]

I heard there was going to be a revamp and additional AAs added but haven't heard when or if for certain.

[Mellaus]

I'm not a big fan of level cap raise myself.

I see that as a trademark of Blizzard, which they use to make all the current gear obsolete and keep people playing.

I for one way prefer other ways of progressing, like alt chars for instance.
I also like the alternate advancement, i believe it's a more elegant way to create progression.

I recall FC stating that they wanted to expand the AA tree horizontally with feats specifics to crafting along with the crafting revamp.
But it was a while ago.
And considering the route that has been taken with recent changes, it's quite obvious FC can't deliver on that area and will stick to easy numbers tweaks.

[Joalis]

I'm not a big fan of level cap raise myself.

I see that as a trademark of Blizzard, which they use to make all the current gear obsolete and keep people playing.

I for one way prefer other ways of progressing, like alt chars for instance.
I also like the alternate advancement, i believe it's a more elegant way to create progression.

I recall FC stating that they wanted to expand the AA tree horizontally with feats specifics to crafting along with the crafting revamp.
But it was a while ago.
And considering the route that has been taken with recent changes, it's quite obvious FC can't deliver on that area and will stick to easy numbers tweaks.

See, it's not a Blizzard thing. It was done by many MMO gaming companies, and those games are actually the trademark / most successful games on the market since the creation of the MMORPG genre.

Everquest, then Everquest II did level cap increases before WoW. They're still around. Final Fantasy didn't have a level cap increase, but it increased the skill caps allowing players with additional means to progress. World of Warcraft does it with every new expansion, and it draws back players that stopped playing while also attracting new players and keeping existing players intact. LotL also did a level cap increase which helped the game stay alive. EVE Online didn't have levels, but also added new skills - similar to adding levels for that game style I hear.

Rift just had a level cap increase last year (or was that in 2012?) - which reinvigorated that game dramatically. Without Storm Legion, Rift might have started to lose subscribers, but after the expansion and level cap increase, a huge boost in players that had left the game returned - along with new players joining. They're even talking about a level cap raise for GW2 already also.

There are games out there with level cap increases that did not succeed of course. A massive number of them being Asian imports because the level cap increase became an incredible grind that required your entire daily dedication to accomplish. Other games were not successful because they didn't make a good game (i.e. Vanguard, which instituted a level cap increase). The Secret World doesn't have levels, but they do have skills and Funcom continues to add more skills to play with in order to keep people interested. Once you cap out your skills in TSW, you're kinda stuck for progression which really hinders people from paying to support the game.

My point is that the most successful MMORPGs on the market have increased the level cap at some point in order to level the playing field and invigorate the community.

I'm having a hard time thinking of an actual successful MMORPG that has been kept alive which did not increase it's level cap and progression options at some point.

AoC does have AA, but AA is extremely limited and restricted to subs (one of the huge downfalls of the F2P model Funcom has implemented - and which drives away players who pay into the cash shop over subbing). AA is enough, IMO, to give the sense of progression, but it only increases the disparity between hardcore vs casual and veteran vs new players -- which is why a level cap increase that supports AA gain while leveling would be the perfect way to eliminate that disparity.

[K4nnyc]

Increasing the level cap will make all existing content out of date.

It means that funcom must create an enormous amount of new content.

It's unrealistic to expect this with the current glacial development speed. What we have now is all we are going to have. All we can hope for are some small systems fixes and small content additions. Basically it's done. What you see is what you get.