Level Cap

cane · April 1, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

Why does a level cap make sense when there is a finite amount of exp in the game? Compared to other games there is no way to powerlevel your characters as you only get exp from quests and a small bit from skills/monsters

Blovski · April 1, 2015

Eh, it comes in a tad early but it's nowhere near as bad as the first Baldur's Gate was in terms of that. Kinda petulant to act like this is some decision against completionists rather than the same awkward compromise between endgame challenge (for instance, soloing SoA or Tutu with a TOB level cap was just too easy), development time, leaving room for expansion and so on that it's always been.

Voss · April 1, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

Why does a level cap make sense when there is a finite amount of exp in the game? Compared to other games there is no way to powerlevel your characters as you only get exp from quests and a small bit from skills/monsters

Actually, power-leveling is quite easy. My party is level 10 and I haven't even gotten to chapter 2 yet, (I can, but I'm finishing up all the side quests first, which is... yet more xp).

But combat isn't exactly...challenging. I hit the cipher 'win' button for my first character, got bored and started over. Most enemies can't even touch my tanks and only the cheaty spirit buggers get past them.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Voss

stratigo · April 1, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

Why does a level cap make sense when there is a finite amount of exp in the game? Compared to other games there is no way to powerlevel your characters as you only get exp from quests and a small bit from skills/monsters

Actually, power-leveling is quite easy. My party is level 10 and I haven't even gotten to chapter 2 yet, (I can, but I'm finishing up all the side quests first, which is... yet more xp).

But combat isn't exactly...challenging. I hit the cipher 'win' button for my first character, got bored and started over. Most enemies can't even touch my tanks and only the cheaty spirit buggers get past them.

Most of the game is eay. Then you get to the adra dragon.

Smorensky · April 1, 2015

Eh, it comes in a tad early but it's nowhere near as bad as the first Baldur's Gate was in terms of that. Kinda petulant to act like this is some decision against completionists rather than the same awkward compromise between endgame challenge (for instance, soloing SoA or Tutu with a TOB level cap was just too easy), development time, leaving room for expansion and so on that it's always been.

Yup, Baldur's Gate 1 had a hard XP cap at 89.000, 161.000 with ToTSC. For most classes that meant lvl7 (lvl9 with expansion). If you explored every nook and crany you could easily hit that cap mid-way through the game. But honestly it didn't bother me at all back then. One reason is that leveling up wasn't the only way to improve your character and party, since equipment you got by doing various quests made as much difference as leveling up. I haven't beaten PoE yet and I'm only around lvl6 atm on hard, but so far the game provides a decent mixture of easy to beat encounters and rly tough chalenges.

I only hope the end boss is as dificult as it was in BG1 with ToTSC, seriously that was by far the most dificult fight in my memory among many rpgs I played. Even with a full party of over geared characters, going in unprepared was just suicide, but all that was explained in BG2 ToB, once I got to see Sarevok's stats "after" his death and ressurection, he rly was a demi-god (or some developers spent 5+ hours rerolling stats during character creation )

nucas · April 1, 2015

oh wow, that's very disappointing. i just got to twin elms and i'm at level 11, 50 hours in. was finally almost getting to that baldur's gate 2 feel of wielding true power too.

god, i just want to cast a timestop so bad.

Sephie · April 1, 2015

Maybe it's like BG, where you started low and weak and capped at low level, but in BG2 things were way different.

I see this game as BG, it is the beggining of a great saga.

PoE 2 can and I hope it will be as BG2 was to BG, and more!

Valtonis · April 1, 2015

wasn't the level cap in BG1 even lower like 8 or something IIRC and in BG 2 it was 16 (?) so and additional 8 more levels after you import your level 8 characters

ICN · April 1, 2015

I dunno, I kind of like an earlier level cap. It gives me more time to play with all the highest level toys.

Gilrael · April 1, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

Why does a level cap make sense when there is a finite amount of exp in the game? Compared to other games there is no way to powerlevel your characters as you only get exp from quests and a small bit from skills/monsters

Actually, power-leveling is quite easy. My party is level 10 and I haven't even gotten to chapter 2 yet, (I can, but I'm finishing up all the side quests first, which is... yet more xp).

But combat isn't exactly...challenging. I hit the cipher 'win' button for my first character, got bored and started over. Most enemies can't even touch my tanks and only the cheaty spirit buggers get past them.

Most of the game is eay. Then you get to the adra dragon.

Tha Adra Dragon is a sissy (with a full party). Just buy 2 paralysis scrolls from the vendor 2 levels above. The fight last less than 60 seconds real time. The wave of adds are included in the range of the second scrolls when you recast the spell.

vikke · April 1, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

With logarithmic XP need for next the lvl you wouldn't make expansion imbalanced (you would level up quickly and catch up if you were behind). Hate to compare with BG, but it has a XP cap of 161k - and my last solo run with a cap remover ended with little over 800k xp - but that is just a few levels (lvl11 compared to lvl9). And that doesn't make much difference in BG2.

I am Catharsis · April 1, 2015

To be honest, The game as it is right now is hard for those who wish to achieve the hardest challenges, and I feel like raising the max level would make them quite trivial: Path of the damned, Solo, Expert.. With a level 12+ level would probably be not that hard, so not really intresting.

In addition to this, even after completing a lot of side quests, I didn't reach the 12th level before finishing the game on my main character (The last levels requires much more experience than the first6 - 7 ones). So yeah.. Even with more levels allowed, i don't really see how you could reach them as the XP is really really limited (almost nothing from monsters).

So yeah, I don't really see the point in all of this.

Smorensky · April 1, 2015

Well as I said, you could have a lvl 14 character but if he went around wearing nothing but his birthday suit those extra 2 lvls wouldn't rly help much... There is more than 1 way to improve your party, you have levels and you have gear. So reaching a lvl cap without obtaining the best equipmnet still provides an added incentive for me to keep exploring in addition to the story.

Nanakamado · April 1, 2015

It's really sad RPG is all about story and character development, and I hate when character development cease at some point.

And for the fights, if they are to easy It's only better, I don't like when fights are to long and boring. Really preffer story.

lord_wc · April 1, 2015

Well as I said, you could have a lvl 14 character but if he went around wearing nothing but his birthday suit those extra 2 lvls wouldn't rly help much... There is more than 1 way to improve your party, you have levels and you have gear. So reaching a lvl cap without obtaining the best equipmnet still provides an added incentive for me to keep exploring in addition to the story.

Some people just hate to leave xp go to waste and love to level up.

Why do you want to convince them that they actually don't like it and everything is great this way? It is not, the game with the low level cap doesn't give a full experience to those that like to explore and finish everything and get rewarded for it.

See the whole point is having no level cap would satisfy both parties - you could go and get your items and stay level 12 and those that like levelling up would get to 15 or 16 or whatever the amount of xp is available in the game. Their fun wouldn't affect you the least bit. However with the artificial level cap one party is flat out shafted of their fun. It serves only one side and deprives the other.

It's not good this way, you can argue about it but you are wrong.

It also is highly unprofessional. I mean you just go and sum up all the xp available in the game. Then you artificially cap it lower because? well, why exactly? The only logical reason that comes to my mind is because you are lazy to add in content for the classes for those levels.

Edited April 1, 2015 by lord_wc

Gilrael · April 1, 2015

Some people just hate to leave xp go to waste and love to level up.

Why do you want to convince them that they actually don't like it and everything is great this way? It is not, the game with the low level cap doesn't give a full experience to those that like to explore and finish everything and get rewarded for it.

See the whole point is having no level cap would satisfy both parties - you could go and get your items and stay level 12 and those that like levelling up would get to 15 or 16 or whatever the amount of xp is available in the game. Their fun wouldn't affect you the least bit. However with the artificial level cap one party is flat out shafted of their fun. It serves only one side and deprives the other.

It's not good this way, you can argue about it but you are wrong.

It also is highly unprofessional. I mean you just go and sum up all the xp available in the game. Then you artificially cap it lower because? well, why exactly? The only logical reason that comes to my mind is because you are lazy to add in content for the classes for those levels.

I fully agree with you. I am a player that loves to do every quest and doesn't care if I am a few levels higher that the end boss.

The other way I can imagine that made them implement a level cap is that once they gave the end boss to a certain level, they didn't want to "force" players to do all the quests to reach a minimum level at which they can "beat the boss", enabling lazy players, who do only half the content of the game (the main story), to still beat him while on the phone eating a pizza.

For me this is absurd. Why would you buy a good game and do only half the content?

So Dev should make Boss fight aligned with someone who completed 90% of the game. Not 75% or whatever as it is now, with no level cap so completing the game rewards you with a easier end game. Or, you could enable an option in the setting that auto aligned the end boss with your level.

I reached level cap when arriving at twin elms by the way. I havn't finished story yet, but I guess (well I hope) I still have some play time before me.

Canzi · April 2, 2015

Some people just hate to leave xp go to waste and love to level up.

Why do you want to convince them that they actually don't like it and everything is great this way? It is not, the game with the low level cap doesn't give a full experience to those that like to explore and finish everything and get rewarded for it.

See the whole point is having no level cap would satisfy both parties - you could go and get your items and stay level 12 and those that like levelling up would get to 15 or 16 or whatever the amount of xp is available in the game. Their fun wouldn't affect you the least bit. However with the artificial level cap one party is flat out shafted of their fun. It serves only one side and deprives the other.

It's not good this way, you can argue about it but you are wrong.

It also is highly unprofessional. I mean you just go and sum up all the xp available in the game. Then you artificially cap it lower because? well, why exactly? The only logical reason that comes to my mind is because you are lazy to add in content for the classes for those levels.

Totally agree with You. May I just add that the level cap made me feel very dissapointed that I could not reach higher level spells. Dissapointed because the developers made place for level 7-10 spells in spell book but there are no such spells in game. I feel a bit cheated and that really broke the spell I was under for this game. It is still very good game.

Hexo · April 3, 2015

Totally agree with You. May I just add that the level cap made me feel very dissapointed that I could not reach higher level spells. Dissapointed because the developers made place for level 7-10 spells in spell book but there are no such spells in game. I feel a bit cheated and that really broke the spell I was under for this game. It is still very good game.

I think the design works great, it leaves room for a sequel/expansion in which we may get to see those higher level spells, and also adds to the feeling that world is bigger than what you see, there are more powerful spells out there

Just as with Baldur's Gate where we can only get up to lvl 4-5 spells, and then have Baldur's Gate II to look forward where we can reach the almost godly lvl 9 spells, awesome :sorcerer:

Edited April 3, 2015 by Hexo

lord_wc · April 3, 2015

I think the design works great, it leaves room for a sequel/expansion in which we may get to see those higher level spells, and also adds to the feeling that world is bigger than what you see, there are more powerful spells out there

Just as with Baldur's Gate where we can only get up to lvl 4-5 spells, and then have Baldur's Gate II to look forward where we can reach the almost godly lvl 9 spells, awesome

It was a bad design decision in BG, it is a bad design decision here as well.

What's the point of having xp in the game then artificially capping the level 40% lower? Either available xp should be less or the level cap should be raised, it is just stupid this way.

And looking forward to having a sequel has more to do with story, gameplay and overall enjoyment than a lousy lvl9 spell. Currently the situation is like wasteland 2 would be capped at level 30 because why the hell not.

Arctic · April 3, 2015

Didn't they say they planned to make this into a series? The level cap makes sense in that case, as otherwise you'd be overleveled for the next installment (nevermind not having a chance to pick from the new higher level spells). Also, for those of us who've been here and done that, all the old games had xp caps as well.

and you didnt get that level cap xp unless you solo or grind respawnable monster kill xp. (i hitted level cap in this game in act 2)

The bad thing is that when i got the level cap i lost all the interest for questing ... and went directly for ending the game ignoring all quests. Since you could not level more and it seamed there was no cool items to go for ...

Lvl cap at max earnable xp (14-15) even if the game is meant to end at lvl 12 meibe for the expansion

Edited April 3, 2015 by Arctic

lord_wc · April 3, 2015

The bad thing is that when i got the level cap i lost all the interest for questing ... and went directly for ending the game ignoring all quests. Since you could not level more and it seamed there was no cool items to go for ...

Now add to this that mobs kill after bestairy completion doesn't give xp either and suddenly sneaking past everything passing half the content and all the interesting magnifying glasses is the logical approach.

Seriously xp is the same as easter eggs - it doesn't have to be meaningful but it should give even a tiny sense of achievement. Just like bunnyhopping up the peak of the Throat of the World in skyrim for an absolutely useless pick - it made it fun, it made it an adventure. If nothing was there who would bother with exploring?

Itasko · April 3, 2015

Wow. A level cap of only 12? Kind of disappointing. I like leveling up. Let's me know I can always get a wee bit stronger if I'm having trouble somewhere. Plus it gives me more chances to make my character unique in terms of combat. I think level caps in general should always be 999 or 255, but even a cap between 15 - 20 would be better than 12 for a game of this magnitude. Not looking forward to the day I hit 12.

Icezera · April 3, 2015

It's like everyone in this thread is forgetting plans for a sequel and the huge amount of work needed to create games without level caps.

If you want any semblance of actual plot progression, you need a level cap. You cry 'muh immersion breaking' when you can't level up more, but having the final boss being killed in 2 seconds flat is more immersion breaking. What's the danger when any old adventurer can go through the world doing random stuff, killing monsters, and leveling up forever to take down any threat in the world?

Second, if you want games to scale without level caps....good luck persuading any game dev to balance the game to cater to every single person who comes to fights with different xp values.

"Oh but you can just make stats scale!" That's not balancing, and it removes the whole point of leveling up when no matter how much you level up, a wolf is still as difficult as when you fought it six levels ago.

Edvin · April 3, 2015

LvL 12 before Twin elms :getlost: It's really too low level cap.
I think that level 15 is much more reasonable.

cane · April 3, 2015

It's like everyone in this thread is forgetting plans for a sequel and the huge amount of work needed to create games without level caps.

If you want any semblance of actual plot progression, you need a level cap. You cry 'muh immersion breaking' when you can't level up more, but having the final boss being killed in 2 seconds flat is more immersion breaking. What's the danger when any old adventurer can go through the world doing random stuff, killing monsters, and leveling up forever to take down any threat in the world?

Second, if you want games to scale without level caps....good luck persuading any game dev to balance the game to cater to every single person who comes to fights with different xp values.

"Oh but you can just make stats scale!" That's not balancing, and it removes the whole point of leveling up when no matter how much you level up, a wolf is still as difficult as when you fought it six levels ago.

Once again... The game has a finite amount of exp so why have a level cap? It's not like games where you can grind for an infinite amount of time

Level Cap

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