Level Cap

[oldmanpaco]

It's been said that this game is (hopefully) 1st in a series. Is the leveling system being setup like BG/BG2/TOB where characters increase to a specific limit (based on content hopefully) then continue on in the next game or like IWD/IWD2 where the games are basically standalone and the characters get up to high levels in each game?

 

Don't make it like W1/W2 where we just start back at a low level with the same character. That's some weak sh%t.

 

BTW whats the language policy on this site? We family friendly?

[Oerwinde]

Thats just the issue with continuing with the same character, unless the sequels are designed with powerful opponents in mind. I tend not to like epic level stuff. BG2/Throne of Bhaal annoyed me because of the sheer numbers of high level characters everywhere, so either levels need to be reset, or your character needs to be able to rip through everyone in his path aside from the occaisional powerful boss.

[oldmanpaco]

I disagree. Chapter 2 in BG2 was the sweet spot of the whole series.

[Oerwinde]

the mid level part of the BG series was the good part. Around level 12-14, when you had enough power to feel like a badass, but there were still enemies to realistically challenge you. Fighting endless level 25 grunts in throne of bhaal was terrible.

[LadyCrimson]

BTW whats the language policy on this site? We family friendly?

It's family-friendly. Forum Guidlines

[Tychoxi]

I never liked level caps. It would be much better (though I can understand if its too much of a hassle with a limited budget) to design your game so that people will reach the endgame with an average level of XX plus/minus Y. There's also the implication here that level-grinding in a horrible thing to make your game force/allow the players to do.

[trulez]

Hard cap at 20, expected level at the end around 15 with the extra levels available for completionists.

[Humanoid]

Presuming the character development is based on levels (is there any information on this even out), I think that, correctly approached, you can have the effective level cap without having to actually implement one. If you design the game without any infinitely respawning or repeatable sources of experience, no further action is required. I'm a firm believer in decoupling kills from experience, except in the case of unique plot-based foes (in which case they'd be functionally identical to quests anyway).

 

Another thing that often leads to level inflation is excessive XP awarded from optional side-quests. Perhaps the design could be calibrated such that side-quests award a fraction of what mainline quests do, and instead award other interesting things, like a slightly better version of the current level-relevant gear, unlock alternative means of completing an upcoming mainline quest, or even give purely aesthetic "fun" items. An additional benefit of this approach is that it'd be a lot easier to balance the mainline content without having to excessively scale it, since the levelling curve becomes a fair bit more predictable.

 

 

All that factored in, the game should be able to be calibrated so players naturally fall into an expected, and fairly narrow level range, and like BG, one well short of what the character mechanics are capable of handling gracefully.

[salty]

I hate level caps because I always end up at the cap way before the end of the game. At the same time, if there was a cap and you can't really get to it, I'd also be frustrated by that.

[Delterius]

the mid level part of the BG series was the good part. Around level 12-14, when you had enough power to feel like a badass, but there were still enemies to realistically challenge you. Fighting endless level 25 grunts in throne of bhaal was terrible.

 

One thing they could do is create a levelling system where a Powerful Individual cannot level a entire city by himself. Where even paltry soldiers can threaten with numbers and/or tactics.

[Lohi]

Personally I'd like to just dump levels. Go with pure points/skill based system. Game systems often get nervous just dumping them because players want some sort of skill. Ie, Elder Scrolls where the levels themselves really did nothing much important except for health. Then you've got a cap for points/skills instead. If I reach the cap early then that's fine for me, the rest of the game is about doing the quests and exploring. Even at cap you get more powerful as you find better stuff.

 

I think the D&D games the level caps were important because everyone wanted to know what sorts of powers you'd get over time, and so saying that 10 was the cap tells many players exactly what to expect even before they played the game. But there's no need to do that in a system no one knows.

 

I also never liked when you got to the point of being superman in a game. Ie, Fallout once you got a reasonable chance of a critical rifle shot and lots of action points there was never any challenge left at all (except to keep Dogmeat alive of course). I'd like that there was always a slim chance for failure, and a bigger chance if you were stupid, but without scaled enemies ala Oblivion.

[Audiocide]

I don't mind a level cap, but please don't do the monster scaling stuff as with Bethesda's Oblivion, and a bunch of other games.

 

A goblin is a goblin. At level 15 (or equivalent), I'm supposed be mowing through those weaksauce beasts, not getting killed by toughened goblins or supreme goblins, or demi-gobs or whatever.

 

I think part of the appeal of Baldur's Gate games was that towards the end, you actually FELT powerful. Bandits or simple orcs were not a concern for your character. Sure, there were a couple extra golems in a dungeon if you entered at a higher level, but nothing silly.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Audiocide

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'd really like to see infinite levels a fixed difficulty and new game +

 

New Game + is so great in games.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Moonlight Butterfly

[bstrothe]

I don't mind a level cap, but please don't do the monster scaling stuff as with Bethesda's Oblivion, and a bunch of other games.

 

A goblin is a goblin. At level 15 (or equivalent), I'm supposed be mowing through those weaksauce beasts, not getting killed by toughened goblins or supreme goblins, or demi-gobs or whatever.

 

I think part of the appeal of Baldur's Gate games was that towards the end, you actually FELT powerful. Bandits or simple orcs were not a concern for your character. Sure, there were a couple extra golems in a dungeon if you entered at a higher level, but nothing silly.

 

Scale the bosses if you have to, but yes please no uber-kobolds with epic-levels. It is my number one reason for not playing the elder scrolls games, it just feels too much like a treadmill, getting stronger but going nowhere relative to the power level in the game world.

[Bos_hybrid]

If they are hoping to make multiple games with the same PC, a level cap is a given. Which I'm fine with. 10-15 perhaps.

[Intoxicated_Ant]

I think keeping it low levelled would be best, I like games that cap out at around 20. Games that cap out at around 80 are just a bit much if you ask me.

[Oerwinde]

I say no hard cap, but design the game so you have to be some sort of masochist in search of weak enemies just for that extra bit of xp to get passed what the devs expect to be the level cap.

[Ashes2Ashes]

I'm not a massive fan of level caps. In Fallout 3, found it annoying that based on my igonorant initial purcahse of the quick learner perk, I reached a point two thirds of the way through the campaign where I couldn't advance in level, at least until the release of the second expansion.

 

If a level cap is required by the mechanics decided on by Obsidian, at least make it difficult to reach max level until the end game.

[Lephys]

I guess I'm okay with level caps. I think they provide a nice, proper, gentlemanly, disciplined aesthetic. I think we should probably still get to have crooked caps, though, to convey our renegade lack of respect for order and authority, u_u...

 

Humor aside, , I'm all for scaling, really. I just don't like how it's often done. Problems arise when you're level 10 and have 1,000 hitpoints and do 125 damage, but little Level 2 Goblins still have 20 hitpoints and deal 7 damage (not including your armor's damage reduction). At that point, the Goblins are providing literally no combat challenge. You end up trying to make sure that anything that involves Goblins happens during the first few character levels of play, and then you NEVER see Goblins again (or as little as possible, because they're pointless.)

 

I think this is part of why games start you off with rats so often, haha. You acknowledge that they'll get you to level 2, but you're never 20 hours into the game, thinking "Man, what ever happened to the rats? They had such a rich culture. Surely, in all my travels, I'd be BOUND to run into some more rats, right? Like a cave run by them, or a little wooded glen outpost, or maybe they'll ambush me on the road?" Haha.

 

So, I mean, I think that just has a lot to do with balancing in a whole mess of over-arching parts of the game. But, in that same example (where Goblins were piddly excuses for nuisances after level 5-or-so), you could scale them (wait for it...) using only certain factors, such as equipment, rather than simply increasing their level. Levels are a nice organizational tool, but they encompass a whole cluster of adjustments. So, if you (purely for example) JUST scaled the Goblins' equipment (I dunno, maybe it's understood that only the awesomely-equipped Goblins are going to try to ambush your awesome party traveling on the road?), you could provide them with much better damage mitigation and damage output as compared to their Level 1-2 selves (so that they might take more than one thwack, or you might have to use certain skills/weapons to penetrate their armor, and the amount of damage they deal requires you to do more than cough in their general direction) without causing them to be directly on-par with your party.

 

Obviously that would still not be perfect, but that was just one simple change. But, I believe in soft-scaling (Every time you go up a level, enemies beneath your level increase by the difference in your levels divided by 2, for a purely mathematical, overly simplified example.) This way you aren't forced to either do away with weaker enemy types after a few levels (or intentionally make all weaker enemies uninteresting and unmissed later in the game, like our dear friends the rats) or have them be 1/100th the fighting capacity of the player's higher-level party. Also, you can typically find good reasons for the "same" enemies (obviously they're not the exact same Goblins you slaughtered, but different ones) to be not-quite-so-piddly, and you can still have, say, a world in which Goblins live in various areas, rather than magically only living in the areas in which you're able to access at levels 1-3. Then, the areas you're able to access at level 20 are populated by DRAGONS! Everywhere... in the trees... in little burroughs, u_u...

[Valsuelm]

Please no to level caps.

 

The XP cap remover was the first mod (and only mod for a long time) I ever used for BG, when on my first playthrough I reached cap before the end of the game. That was probably my only real major complaint about that game when it came out.

 

I loathe level caps as well as XP resets upon entering an expansion or sequel.

 

If there's one thing I want to see in any expansion/sequel to PE it's true continuity from the previous game. A big part of that is having what you had stat/XP/equipment/companion wise at the end of the previous 'chapter' when you embark upon the next one, unless there is a very good story reason for this to not be the case (ie: BG2... though BG2 (without mods) reset XP which was way uncool).

 

The game should allow for the most ardent completionist to not reach past the max level that is included in the design of the game. If that means that the players who zoom through the main story and do nothing else finish the game with characters around level ~9, while your average player who does some side stuff finishes at level ~11, and the ardent completionists finish the game around level ~13, so be it.

[rjshae]

Will they have spell levels per D&D? If they don't include spells for the higher levels, then level caps may be inevitable. I believe 12th level was mentioned as a probably ending level, which in D&D terms equates to 6th level spells.

[Sacred_Path]

Will they have spell levels per D&D? If they don't include spells for the higher levels, then level caps may be inevitable. I believe 12th level was mentioned as a probably ending level, which in D&D terms equates to 6th level spells.

 

I hope they don't use this anti-climactic system. I hope that every level counts; either by giving you more mana but theoretically all spells are unlocked from the beginning, or by unlocking a new spell level on every level up.

 

also level caps are lovely/ necessary, but it can be done more elegantly, say by using ECL like in DnD. At some point, there will be no foes left in the game powerful enough to give you any XP worth mentioning.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Sacred_Path

[JFSOCC]

I'm ok with levels caps if my character feels finished when I reach it. Meaning that I'm satisfied with the powers, skills and abilities I've gotten and don't feel like I've missed some things that I really wanted to add.

[Duke]

But, in that same example (where Goblins were piddly excuses for nuisances after level 5-or-so), you could scale them (wait for it...) using only certain factors, such as equipment, rather than simply increasing their level. Levels are a nice organizational tool, but they encompass a whole cluster of adjustments. So, if you (purely for example) JUST scaled the Goblins' equipment (I dunno, maybe it's understood that only the awesomely-equipped Goblins are going to try to ambush your awesome party traveling on the road?), you could provide them with much better damage mitigation and damage output as compared to their Level 1-2 selves

 

Except then you end up with what happened in Oblivion - every single bandit you met was fully decked out in Daedric armour and wielded some sort of angry demonic soul-stealing mace. And STILL soon became little more than a minor annoyance.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I'd prefer a Hackmaster (new edition) approach to the D&D-style leveling: every level is significant, yet the whole leveling curve is a lot smoother. For example, your mages gain a new spell level when they level up, but there isn't such a sharp difference between the spell levels. Also, you gain a new hit die at every second level (but you may re-roll the previous result and keep the higher one when you don't gain a new one).