Level cap and pacing

[Shadowmant]

So I was wondering what peoples feeling are in terms of the pacing of character levels and how fast or slow you should gain them. 

 

We know at this point there are 12 levels (or 11 instances of levelling up) and while we do not know the lengh of the game I see a lot of people guessing in around the 20-25 hour mark.  

 

How do people feel the level pacing should go.  Should it be a flat rate of roughly 1 level per 2 hours of play?  Should your early levelling be accelerated and then the later levelling be slowed (say around 4 hours per level)?  Should the levelling be quick but cause you to hit the level cap earlier (such as 3/4 of the way through the game)?  

 

What are peoples thoughts on this?

[Jarmo]

I hope a rather flat rate, but am not super happy there's a level cap to begin with.

There's optional content and I'd guess that optional content also yields XP, more or less.

 

So either 1.) the game is set so, you'll hit the cap only when doing all the optional content,

or 2.) you'll hit the cap not doing any of the optional stuff and doing the optional stuff makes you hit the cap midgame.

 

Neither is very appealing, but I'd prefer 1.)

But then there's the talents and no doubt there'll be something way sweet as the talent of last level.

Meaning you better drudge through every damn fetch&carry, 17 thousand rat tails to the blacksmith, no prob.

[rjshae]

Haven't we discussed this before? Not that it matters, I suppose.

 

Let's say 40-80 hours of play time and twelve levels; that's one level up per ~3-6 hours of play. Seems fine.

Edited February 6, 2014 by rjshae

[FlintlockJazz]

I hope a rather flat rate, but am not super happy there's a level cap to begin with.

There's optional content and I'd guess that optional content also yields XP, more or less.

 

So either 1.) the game is set so, you'll hit the cap only when doing all the optional content,

or 2.) you'll hit the cap not doing any of the optional stuff and doing the optional stuff makes you hit the cap midgame.

 

Neither is very appealing, but I'd prefer 1.)

But then there's the talents and no doubt there'll be something way sweet as the talent of last level.

Meaning you better drudge through every damn fetch&carry, 17 thousand rat tails to the blacksmith, no prob.

I'd say it'll actually be 3.) you'll hit cap doing some of the optional stuff.  You won't max doing just the storyline but you won't need to scavenge for every last xp.  I'm fine with this, means I can put some stuff off for other playthroughs and not feel like I am gimping myself, and the low level cap avoids power creep and avoids excessive leveling for what is supposed to be a series of games we are going to be carrying a character forward through.  Better to keep the levels low rather than give us too many levels at the start and then have to top it.  Hell, it's already higher than what was in BG1, that game only really took you to level 9-10 and that is with an expansion pack that increased it!

[Jarmo]

 I'd say it'll actually be 3.) you'll hit cap doing some of the optional stuff.  

 

You're probably right about that.

[ShadySands]

I haven't really been following this too closely but is it a hard cap?

 

If they are still doing objective based XP instead of kill and quest XP maybe the critical path plus the most obvious side quests brings you to around 11 or 12 but a completionist may be able to get a level or two more

[teknoman2]

I hope a rather flat rate, but am not super happy there's a level cap to begin with.

There's optional content and I'd guess that optional content also yields XP, more or less.

 

So either 1.) the game is set so, you'll hit the cap only when doing all the optional content,

or 2.) you'll hit the cap not doing any of the optional stuff and doing the optional stuff makes you hit the cap midgame.

 

Neither is very appealing, but I'd prefer 1.)

But then there's the talents and no doubt there'll be something way sweet as the talent of last level.

Meaning you better drudge through every damn fetch&carry, 17 thousand rat tails to the blacksmith, no prob.

and why could it not be that by not doing the optional stuff you dont get to level cap, by doing them, you get to the cap at about 80-85% of the game (when the optional stuff are done and only the story is left to wrap up)?

Edited February 6, 2014 by teknoman2

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

IMO hitting the level cap, hard or soft, should require doing a fair bit of optional stuff and a good portion of the main questline. Reaching the cap doing only main quest stuff should be impossible.

[Shadowmant]

I haven't really been following this too closely but is it a hard cap?

 

 

Yep, level 12 is the hard level cap unless that gets changed during development of course, but that seems as unlikely as anything can this early in production.

[Oneiromancer]

I haven't really been following this too closely but is it a hard cap?

 

They're going with a Baldur's Gate formula from what I understood: hard cap with different level caps unlocked by eventual expansions or sequels. I personally don't mind, I prefer low level D&D anyway and a huge amount of levels could either make the "numbers" grow out of control or simply devalue levelling itself.

[tychokepler]

I like the idea of a level cap for ability scores but no cap for feats

[Ganrich]

 

I haven't really been following this too closely but is it a hard cap?

 

They're going with a Baldur's Gate formula from what I understood: hard cap with different level caps unlocked by eventual expansions or sequels. I personally don't mind, I prefer low level D&D anyway and a huge amount of levels could either make the "numbers" grow out of control or simply devalue levelling itself.

 

 

I agree with this.  I would much prefer less levels in the game as you get more power gain from each level.  In the IE and NWN games you would level, and be ready to get into combat to try that new spell you got from getting level 3 spells unlocked, or to try that new feat out, or to see if you can go back and finally unlock that chest.  In most modern games with leveling systems that are higher, like Skyrim, you level up and you are barely any more powerful than before (woopity doo!!!  I do 3% more damage with power attacks!) so it feels like the same thing it did 5 minutes ago.  Although, Skyrim's Feat system made this a little better than some IMHO, but only when the Feat in question made a significant change like the 2 handed casting feats or the feat where healing restored stamina.  Certain feats made you feel powerful others though... yawn.

 

I want leveling to matter.  It is a very gratifying experience to feel more powerful immediately after leveling, and many games throw this out of the window for a higher number for the sake of a higher number.

 

I am glad Obsidian is going for a lower number here.  It will also mean we won't have to reboot our character every sequel (crosses fingers) to the game like the ME series.  That was something that truly irritated me from the very beginning of ME2.  Although, at least ME2 tried to explain it through the story.  ME3 just did it and didn't care if it made sense.

[Hassat Hunter]

Personally don't mind a cap.

 

Look at KOTOR1. Lvl 20 cap, you usually reached it the final planet. All good, right?

KOTOR2. No level cap... balance completely gone once you reach higher levels, which was easy with all the bonus XP given around compared to KOTOR1.

 

Actually having the cap would make it much easier to balance the game and mechanics around it, instead of putting it much higher and say 'screw it.'

[rjshae]

Since there is no XP for culling respawns, the amount of XP it is possible to gain may be absolutely fixed. This may mean that there is no level cap necessary since you could never reach the next level anyway (short of using cheat codes).

[Hassat Hunter]

That's going out you only reach max level doing everything ingame.

Instead of allowing some wiggle room and maximum without doing everything (which your system would not allow).

 

So no, objective XP would not completely obsolete the concept of a level cap.

[AGX-17]

So I was wondering what peoples feeling are in terms of the pacing of character levels and how fast or slow you should gain them. 

 

We know at this point there are 12 levels (or 11 instances of levelling up) and while we do not know the lengh of the game I see a lot of people guessing in around the 20-25 hour mark.  

 

How do people feel the level pacing should go.  Should it be a flat rate of roughly 1 level per 2 hours of play?  Should your early levelling be accelerated and then the later levelling be slowed (say around 4 hours per level)?  Should the levelling be quick but cause you to hit the level cap earlier (such as 3/4 of the way through the game)?  

 

What are peoples thoughts on this?

Why would leveling rate be defined by playtime and not quests completed/experience gained? Different players will do different things at their own pace. Some people might metagame to level as rapidly as possible, others might go deliberately slowly.

Edited February 19, 2014 by AGX-17

[catspwnme]

I agree with a cap. If there is one or not, that is okay with me. 

 

A cap, in my gaming style, will actually help guide me in certain ways.

[rjshae]

That's going out you only reach max level doing everything ingame.

Instead of allowing some wiggle room and maximum without doing everything (which your system would not allow).

 

So no, objective XP would not completely obsolete the concept of a level cap.

 

No, you have a level's worth of wiggle room. There's no need for a hard-coded cap if you keep the maximum possible total below the amount for the next level.

[JFSOCC]

I hope that despite the level cap being put at 12(ish) that class progression is already designed beyond that. Otherwise you might get weird progression jumps in the sequel.

[Hassat Hunter]

No, you have a level's worth of wiggle room. There's no need for a hard-coded cap if you keep the maximum possible total below the amount for the next level.

That'll be extremely hard to setup though.

And can cause the bad side-effect a player needs to do everything.

Also, it would probably slow down progression since with a cap they can be more lenient and allow players to pass levels quicker, since they will be stopped at the cap of content, while in your system there's no way to balance the game like that, it needs to go slower not to exceed the mass.

 

I can't see it work in practice...

[teknoman2]

 

No, you have a level's worth of wiggle room. There's no need for a hard-coded cap if you keep the maximum possible total below the amount for the next level.

That'll be extremely hard to setup though.

And can cause the bad side-effect a player needs to do everything.

Also, it would probably slow down progression since with a cap they can be more lenient and allow players to pass levels quicker, since they will be stopped at the cap of content, while in your system there's no way to balance the game like that, it needs to go slower not to exceed the mass.

 

I can't see it work in practice...

 

with an objective based xp and with no xp for individual kills, it's possible. you cannot grind xp... there is a limited amount in the game and is hand placed. so if the target level is 12. you can put in just enough xp to make a character reach it with about 80-85% of the game's content explored, and if you want you may allow someone who completed 100% of the game except for the final boss, to be lv13

[rjshae]

 

No, you have a level's worth of wiggle room. There's no need for a hard-coded cap if you keep the maximum possible total below the amount for the next level.

That'll be extremely hard to setup though.

And can cause the bad side-effect a player needs to do everything.

Also, it would probably slow down progression since with a cap they can be more lenient and allow players to pass levels quicker, since they will be stopped at the cap of content, while in your system there's no way to balance the game like that, it needs to go slower not to exceed the mass.

 

I can't see it work in practice...

 

I believe you're wrong. All they need to do is make it feasible to reach level 12, but tally up the XP totals so they are less than the amount needed to reach  level 13.

[J.E. Sawyer]

On a normal non-completionist playthrough, the characters will not reach 12th level.  We need to have a level cap because we can only make so much content (spells, talents, abilities, etc.) for all of the classes.  You can hit second level relatively quickly, but the overall leveling rate should feel somewhere between BG and IWD -- sort of to be expected since our cap is between the BG/IWD caps.

[Osvir]

My internet is down at home and I'm visiting a friend, so I briefed through this thread pretty quickly. Prolly not going to be online too much

@Josh:
Will Level Cap be something that can be adjusted in a ruleset somehow? Could we make it go to... I dunno, 20? 30? 40? etc. etc. originally you could only go to level 10 on your heroes in WarCraft 3, but Blizzard allowed modders to raise the level cap. The MOBA scene wouldn't have existed at this point without it.

Which brings me to a next question regarding content creation and mod-making. Because being able to raise the level cap would require more content.

- Being able to mod the ending to be an "Open World Ending". Kind of like how GTA works, even if you finish the game you can still run around and complete bonus objectives or just roam around or whatnot. The game doesn't end, the scripted story kind of ends, and another (Player made) story begins. I do not want the game you are making to have an open ending, but I'd much appreciate if there was some sort of "switch" that allows the game to continue, as per "not-designed-ending".

- Content creation. Being able to add NPC's and write dialogues, Quest tables and place loot in the world and create some more fan-made "End-Game" content. Monsters, enemies, rewards. I think a game like this can benefit a lot by doing something like this. A sort of "the game doesn't end"-mode which could be a good area for modders to put their additions. I'd also love to have it reverse, being able to create a prologue or whatnot, before the actual game begins, to be able to possibly create some homebrew origins for different race/class combos.

- No environment modification would have to be done. Not to a start at least.

- If I finish the game on level 12, and I manage to raise the level cap to 20 (by modding) it'd make sense to have mostly post-ending homebrew content.

- Spell effects/description/sfx(?), I know a lot of people who could get very creative with that. Adding abilities as a character levels up post-designed level cap.

- Monster variants~ more levels would have to have new and rougher challenges.

Short question: Will we be able to raise the level cap by modding?

[Sir Chaox]

On a normal non-completionist playthrough, the characters will not reach 12th level.  We need to have a level cap because we can only make so much content (spells, talents, abilities, etc.) for all of the classes.  You can hit second level relatively quickly, but the overall leveling rate should feel somewhere between BG and IWD -- sort of to be expected since our cap is between the BG/IWD caps.

 

Will the game be beatable without reaching max level? Will the game be too easy if you do reach max level?

 

Usually a concern of mine. It's difficult to find a balance between ensuring non-completionist players can still finish the game (perhaps with difficulty) but still challenge players who have done it all and are as strong as they can be.