MMORPG Level caps.

[dfcrackhead]

I play a lot of different(free) MMO's. Runescape, maple story, perfect world, just to name a few. I've even tried WoW (private server of course). One nagging little question always bugs me, why, oh why, are there level caps? Like in WoW I think it's something like 80, in Maple story its like 120 last I checked, Runescape was 99 in each skill and I didn't play Perfect World enough to find out if it had a cap.

I just want to know, why have the level caps?

And also, are you for or against the caps, personally I'm against even though I never play long enough to hit the cap to begin with, I just wanna see how high someone would go if given infinite opportunity to continue leveling.

 

[Poomanchu745]

Because programmers and game devs dont have the time to put in to let people go that high. I mean part of the fun with leveling is getting new skills every x amount of levels. that really would not be possible with infinite levels. Plus then it makes PVP and raiding a very tricky situation. what would be the fun of running raids if 1 guy in your group is essentially soloing the bosses?

 

[dmase]

Because programmers and game devs dont have the time to put in to let people go that high. I mean part of the fun with leveling is getting new skills every x amount of levels. that really would not be possible with infinite levels. Plus then it makes PVP and raiding a very tricky situation. what would be the fun of running raids if 1 guy in your group is essentially soloing the bosses?

What you say makes a lot of sense(for those of you who bugged me about about that last time well did i use the right fucking one this time?), but its also the main reason I don't play mmorpg's. If I am gonna pay an online fee to play i'd like to exceed some lvl cap instead of just running around finding stuff to be better.

Just so you know not aimed at OP or person i quoted concerning that remark, just people.

Edit: unless it was you of course.

 

[stinkypitz]

Well the way MMORPG characters level depends on the balancing of stats and skills. Skills are pretty much what makes a character (or a class), and there can only be so many of them, even when you reach the cap there are an overwhelming amount. If there was to be an infinite amount of levels, the skills would either have to be very sparse or just stop at some point. The main idea is that the MMORPG is based on the carrot on a stick concept, and without the carrot then there is no motivation to keep playing. I can see how it might work in some cases, but it would take careful planning and balancing. (I believe Guild Wars 2 plans on doing it, dont take my word for it though)

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I play a lot of different(free) MMO's. Runescape, maple story, perfect world, just to name a few. I've even tried WoW (private server of course). One nagging little question always bugs me, why, oh why, are there level caps? Like in WoW I think it's something like 80, in Maple story its like 120 last I checked, Runescape was 99 in each skill and I didn't play Perfect World enough to find out if it had a cap.

I just want to know, why have the level caps?

And also, are you for or against the caps, personally I'm against even though I never play long enough to hit the cap to begin with, I just wanna see how high someone would go if given infinite opportunity to continue leveling.

WoW needs a level cap so that end-game content can be tuned for that level. In other words, it's designed such that after a certain point, you stop advancing in level and start advancing in raid or pvp gear.

 

[SantoUno]

If level caps didn't exist in MMO involving PvP the oldest players would obviously slaughter all the newer players, and eventually you would be stronger enough to 1HKO every enemy in the game which would not be so fun, or would makae it unfair in events that involve defeating in-game enemies because someone that strong would sweep each time.

 

[cambodiancam]

It's necessary to keeping people even and not allowing them to one hit every monster. But I know of a game where the cap is moved almost every time someone gets it it's called 9 dragons. And you can literally get up to a ridiculously high level, but they will make monster's and dungeons for the new cap when they add it. Which is what every game does when the cap is raised.

 

[LogicNProportion]

Star Wars Galaxies did it right a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Alright, enough shtick, however, when SWG was first released, their idea for how characters gaiend and retained skills was quite genius. In the end, you could be a master of all, and then go Jedi and start the nonsense all over again, becoming more and more godlike.

 

[clairedelune]

1) Because it's a lot easier to climb up the levels if you know there is a top and if you can see the top, than if you know you will be climbing forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever....
2)You feel a lot cooler (though honestly, shouldn't you feel less cool?) knowing you have hit the max level/maxed out all your skills.

 

[Carlston]

I play a lot of different(free) MMO's. Runescape, maple story, perfect world, just to name a few. I've even tried WoW (private server of course). One nagging little question always bugs me, why, oh why, are there level caps? Like in WoW I think it's something like 80, in Maple story its like 120 last I checked, Runescape was 99 in each skill and I didn't play Perfect World enough to find out if it had a cap.

I just want to know, why have the level caps?

And also, are you for or against the caps, personally I'm against even though I never play long enough to hit the cap to begin with, I just wanna see how high someone would go if given infinite opportunity to continue leveling.

Most devs can't make code to scale instances like say the L4D director adding more hordes if your to good.

Most MMO's at end game are sloppy baddly done, hey Bob i can think of anything creative let's just take a basic skeleton and give him 20k hitpoints and call him level 81...elite.

 

[clairedelune]

Star Wars Galaxies did it right a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Alright, enough shtick, however, when SWG was first released, their idea for how characters gaiend and retained skills was quite genius. In the end, you could be a master of all, and then go Jedi and start the nonsense all over again, becoming more and more godlike.

TRUTH. I really liked the SWG leveling system, it was very very different from every other game. Plus, i always saw people trick others and walk around with "Novice TKA" under their name and in newbie gear when they had actually maxed out the skill trees, and when they challenged others to fight they'd just laugh.

 

[Flour]

1 - Level caps exist to give developers a standard to balance content on. It's a lot easier easier to balance the game for a group of level 80 players than it is to balance the content for a group of players close to level 10000 with stats that look like a page from a phone book.

2 - I hate level caps, if I want to get to level 500 and 1-hit the final boss with a rusty tin opener then I should be allowed to. For the second part of the question: The level cap in Disgaea is 9999, and can be reached repeatedly through Reincarnation. [http://disgaea.wikia.com/wiki/Level]

 

[Loop Stricken]

I just want to know, why have the level caps?

And also, are you for or against the caps, personally I'm against even though I never play long enough to hit the cap to begin with, I just wanna see how high someone would go if given infinite opportunity to continue leveling.

Because otherwise stat allocation through level-ups and not gear would make current content exceedingly trivial.

I suggest unto you Disgaea. Level 9999 for characters and armour. And you can reincarnate and do it all over again.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Because programmers and game devs dont have the time to put in to let people go that high. I mean part of the fun with leveling is getting new skills every x amount of levels. that really would not be possible with infinite levels. Plus then it makes PVP and raiding a very tricky situation. what would be the fun of running raids if 1 guy in your group is essentially soloing the bosses?

What you say makes a lot of sense(for those of you who bugged me about about that last time well did i use the right fucking one this time?), but its also the main reason I don't play mmorpg's. If I am gonna pay an online fee to play i'd like to exceed some lvl cap instead of just running around finding stuff to be better.

I think that's why they let people make more than one character.

Hell, that's even the advertised alternative in City of Heroes, with an extremely extensive character creation system and a level cap that's been at 50 since Day 1.

 

[Vimbert]

Personally, I think level caps are a good thing, otherwise it's a little too endless. While I love the Disgaea series dearly, imagine if an MMO came out where you could attain level 9999 and restart from level one with some stat bonuses and your old abilities like Reincarnation.

[HEADING=2]Madness.[/HEADING]

 

[Lyri]

I play a lot of different(free) MMO's. Runescape, maple story, perfect world, just to name a few. I've even tried WoW (private server of course). One nagging little question always bugs me, why, oh why, are there level caps? Like in WoW I think it's something like 80, in Maple story its like 120 last I checked, Runescape was 99 in each skill and I didn't play Perfect World enough to find out if it had a cap.

I just want to know, why have the level caps?

And also, are you for or against the caps, personally I'm against even though I never play long enough to hit the cap to begin with, I just wanna see how high someone would go if given infinite opportunity to continue leveling.

PW had a cap of 99, I think or that was when you got the last skill you could achieve.
No wait...it's cap was 105.

Why would you remove caps?
What's the point of leveling for no reason what so ever?

In my experiance caps allow people to catch up and compete, people who have been playing for 2 years and have hit cap can be challenged by people who have been playing for 3 months and hit cap.

 

[lenneth]

1 - Level caps exist to give developers a standard to balance content on. It's a lot easier easier to balance the game for a group of level 80 players than it is to balance the content for a group of players close to level 10000 with stats that look like a page from a phone book.

2 - I hate level caps, if I want to get to level 500 and 1-hit the final boss with a rusty tin opener then I should be allowed to. For the second part of the question: The level cap in Disgaea is 9999, and can be reached repeatedly through Reincarnation. [http://disgaea.wikia.com/wiki/Level]

But when you get that high in Disgaea your stats do look like a phonebook...and chances are that there is something that can still easily kill you

 

[dfcrackhead]

If level caps didn't exist in MMO involving PvP the oldest players would obviously slaughter all the newer players, and eventually you would be stronger enough to 1HKO every enemy in the game which would not be so fun, or would makae it unfair in events that involve defeating in-game enemies because someone that strong would sweep each time.

well yes unlimited levels would unbalance the PvP a bit, but you could always just have a system where both players must consent to the fight instead of it being a free for all

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Im not a fan of level caps, or at least low caps. Only MMO I've played is Guild Wars and I pretty much gave up after I hit level 20 because there wasn't anything higher to aim for.