I remember when I started 40 was the limit for a while until they made it 50.
Now for a long time after you hit 50 you really had not much to do. Incarnates aside if they decided to say make the cap 60, would you think they would have added more powers to the current sets or maybe make some new pools powers for over 50+. Plus slots of course.
Or was 50 good enough.
Fifty was great. "I'd rather grow wide than grow up." Leaving it at 50 meant your hard work to be awesome at 50 wasn't 100% invalidated by gaining a single level.
the problem is you can't simply "increase the cap" there has to be something for players to do or accomplish in that newly created span of ten more levels. that means creating a whole lot more content. what we had with the incarnates and other 50+ schemes was that. Plus, when you start getting that high, you're bumping up against game mechanics... you may have maxed out several of your powers (which is why incarnate grants you more) and who wants to run an extra two or three more levels just to top off the fitness pool?
I would have liked that level 51 was realized and just give me even 1 extra slot. :-[
I would have loooooved more levels. I remember when i used to make toons getting em up to 50, and just needing that 1 more slot or 2 on a few powers to maximize the passive abilities on certain enhancements. I think raising the cap would have been cool. It'd make me feel rejuvenated again instead of burned out disregarding the incarnate content which was fantastic.
There was always going to be 50 levels but it was financially prudent to get the first 40 out and into paying customer hands than waiting another couple of months to finish Issue 1 content.
"In every project it comes a time to shoot the engineers and get it into production."
Quote from: FatherXmas on March 18, 2014, 10:19:15 PM
There was always going to be 50 levels but it was financially prudent to get the first 40 out and into paying customer hands than waiting another couple of months to finish Issue 1 content.
"In every project it comes a time to shoot the engineers and get it into production."
I knew that. They did the same with COV when it launched.
Though for anyone that was around for the 40 cap - did you still earn xp and it was stored or once they raised the cap did you have to start getting xp again to level up. I never got to 40 before they raised it to 50. I know in COV you stopped getting xp at 40 until they raised the cap.
I was just pointing that out because those who believe that bumping the level cap is a necessity in MMOs would use it as an example that they did it once before so why not again.
Right now that contingent is over on Guild Wars 2 asking for a level bump there as well. WoW has really spoiled people.
That's something that bothers me about WoW, there's a huge chunk of content that very few folks do nowadays at the appropriate level (well, as of when I last played 2 years ago, but I'm sure it's still the same way) because it's "obsolete" so folks just level past it. CoH built up a glut of level 50 content over the years, all of which remained relevant.
People use to go into permadebt so they wouldn't level past content. Then we got flashback and the ability to turn XP off so you could experience all the content without doing crazy things.
The biggest problem with level raising in WoW is "Best in Slot" items that may have taken you countless raids before you had one drop on you, would be obsolete by common items at these higher levels. Capping out at a new set of BIS items you have to raid for a month or two to get, only to be obsolete at the next expansion that ups the level cap.
Quote from: Aggelakis on March 17, 2014, 06:19:07 PM
Fifty was great. "I'd rather grow wide than grow up." Leaving it at 50 meant your hard work to be awesome at 50 wasn't 100% invalidated by gaining a single level.
Agreed. CoH actually did this better then most MMO's I feel. Even before incarnate material turning level 50 was just the start. Especially as the game grew. Getting the perfect build for your character. Badges to be found and accolade powers. Running level 50 missions in PI. Raising money for SG bases. Main level 50's had so much work put into them to be what they were.
I love how CoX treated the level cap, using the 'grow wider' incarnate system that was fairly optional.
Raising a level cap, in any game, is chasing an illusion. New content has to be created for the new cap and cannot be created faster than dedicated players will play through it; anyone who wanted the new cap will reach it and clamor for more before it can be created. Meanwhile, that new content is both useless to all the OTHER, lower-level characters, and because it's the "hot new thing," creates incentive for them to rush past the old cap to get to the new stuff, taking the fun out of a lot of what's already been created.
And it's particularly genre-busting for superheroes -- a lot of movies and comic books imagine a bunch of mature heroes who are roughly equals, and players want to reach that plateau themselves. To have it periodically pulled out from under them -- "Sorry, your famous big-name hero is no longer at the cap, everything just moved," -- would be frustrating and depressing.
On the other hand, to have more content created for existing levels benefits literally everybody AND is easier on the Devs. Plus it's not slavishly copying WoW, which in itself is admirable.
50 was fine with me...
If you wanted more, just go incarnate, play Rikti, Bloody Bay or something.
Quote from: doc7924 on March 17, 2014, 05:11:20 PM
I remember when I started 40 was the limit for a while until they made it 50.
That wasn't really a design decision - it was more of a running-out-of-time-before-launch decision.
Quote from: FatherXmas on March 19, 2014, 10:41:37 AM
People use to go into permadebt so they wouldn't level past content. Then we got flashback and the ability to turn XP off so you could experience all the content without doing crazy things.
The biggest problem with level raising in WoW is "Best in Slot" items that may have taken you countless raids before you had one drop on you, would be obsolete by common items at these higher levels. Capping out at a new set of BIS items you have to raid for a month or two to get, only to be obsolete at the next expansion that ups the level cap.
With all of the problems that increasing the level cap creates for any game like this, including WoW, WoW has an advantage over, say, City of Heroes in raising the level cap, and that's segmentation. The more zones you create, the more levels you have, the more you spread out your playerbase across more zones and levels. Even with things like sidekicking, that dilution of the playerbase has negative consequences. WoW has the numbers to pull that off with less problems. City of Heroes did not have the playerbase count at any time to warrant pushing the level cap increasingly higher. As it was, I believe they probably had too many primary zones.
My guess is that WoW doesn't add levels out of the goodness of their heart. WoW is a game with a greater focus on raiding than CoH, so players tend to alt less and play at the cap more to build out their characters. So in WoW, there are probably lots of players 1-20, less 20-40, even less 40-60, but at some point the number jumps upward as players pile up against the level cap. When enough players catch up to and pile up against the cap, they increase the level cap to allow those players to spread out a bit again and start the rat race again. They do that because there's enough players at the cap to support spreading them out among five or ten more levels.
I don't think CoH ever had that sort of population spike at the cap. I'm sure there was some small spike upward at the cap, but not enough to warrant adding levels to the top.
I don't think they really needed to increase the cap. If they did though, I could possibly envision it implemented through completion of an instanced storyline where you survive the Coming Storm - voila, 50 more levels to struggle through. ON TOP of your 50 levels and x number of incarnate unlocks.
'Congrats, you've saved this reality..And in doing so, you stumbled down the rabbit hole, and discover how deep the Nemesis Plot really goes. Everything you thought you knew... Is but a pale shadow in comparison to what awaits you...' ...Storyline missions at this point might handicap your character's powers, forcing you to count on your expertise as an expert gamer to improvise and solve brain-melting riddles in order to proceed.
I was happy with how things were with the 50 levels - Incarnate setup, but it would have been nice to have an option where each level you added above the 50 would give you a choice of a new power or 3 enhancement slots.
Just think, at level 100, we could all be equal to the Silver Age Superman! :P
Quote from: LadyShin on March 24, 2014, 07:16:07 PM
I don't think they really needed to increase the cap. If they did though, I could possibly envision it implemented through completion of an instanced storyline where you survive the Coming Storm - voila, 50 more levels to struggle through. ON TOP of your 50 levels and x number of incarnate unlocks.
'Congrats, you've saved this reality..And in doing so, you stumbled down the rabbit hole, and discover how deep the Nemesis Plot really goes. Everything you thought you knew... Is but a pale shadow in comparison to what awaits you...' ...Storyline missions at this point might handicap your character's powers, forcing you to count on your expertise as an expert gamer to improvise and solve brain-melting riddles in order to proceed.
Security level is just a number. Incrementing the number is intended to unlock things. In City of Heroes, it unlocked powers and/or slots, and it unlocked content only available to players with a high enough number. The incarnate system was really level 50 through 60, just without the counter. The devs still gave you a way to unlock powers and slots, and they still gave you a content track to unlock and complete. But in the Incarnate system, power unlock and content unlock were decoupled, so instead of being forced to advance linearly, you could advance in different directions simultaneously. *And* it delivered that extra power in a way that wouldn't hose the exemplar system by negating it in lower end content, which freed the devs to give us far more power than the exemplar system would have otherwise forced them to limit to.
More power, more ways to advance, less content gating - we were leveling higher than level 50 in every important way except for the fact the level counter was broken and with more flexibility. Even with all of its flaws and with a need for more content besides Incarnate trials (which were on the roadmap), once the Incarnate system arrived going back to normal levels would have been taking several steps backward. We were never going to get a level cap increase because we had grown beyond the need to ever have a level cap increase.
Quote from: LadyShin on March 24, 2014, 07:16:07 PM
I don't think they really needed to increase the cap. If they did though, I could possibly envision it implemented through completion of an instanced storyline where you survive the Coming Storm - voila, 50 more levels to struggle through. ON TOP of your 50 levels and x number of incarnate unlocks.
'Congrats, you've saved this reality..And in doing so, you stumbled down the rabbit hole, and discover how deep the Nemesis Plot really goes. Everything you thought you knew... Is but a pale shadow in comparison to what awaits you...' ...Storyline missions at this point might handicap your character's powers, forcing you to count on your expertise as an expert gamer to improvise and solve brain-melting riddles in order to proceed.
That is either really great city fan fiction, or you have access to devlogs :P
Quote from: Eoraptor on March 24, 2014, 10:54:56 PM
That is either really great city fan fiction, or you have access to devlogs :P
I can't imagine what the players would say if the Coming Storm turned out to be another Nemesis plot and progress past the Omega slot became an exercise in exemplaring below maximum power. But I can imagine how high the bonfire would burn. The reaction to Kheldians alone proves you'd have been able to see it from space.
Quote from: doc7924 on March 17, 2014, 05:11:20 PM
Now for a long time after you hit 50 you really had not much to do. Incarnates aside if they decided to say make the cap 60, would you think they would have added more powers to the current sets or maybe make some new pools powers for over 50+. Plus slots of course.
It seems to me that incarnates and the associated material _were_ a rise to the level cap in all but name. There wasn't really any functional difference; more to do, and bigger numbers to do it with.
In the early days what you used to do on hitting 50 was go back to the character creator, which made for a much more interesting mix of players in low levels.
Quote from: thunderforce on April 01, 2014, 01:17:28 PM
It seems to me that incarnates and the associated material _were_ a rise to the level cap in all but name. There wasn't really any functional difference; more to do, and bigger numbers to do it with.
I think the best part of that decision was that Incarnates didn't invalidate any hard work you had put in to maximise your regular powers. When SWTOR first raised the level cap and I found out all the purple gear I got by grinding daily mishs would now need to be replaced, I was not happy -- to say the least. This was a significant factor in my quitting.
Quote from: thunderforce on April 01, 2014, 01:17:28 PM
In the early days what you used to do on hitting 50 was go back to the character creator, which made for a much more interesting mix of players in low levels.
I never thought about that before. Did Incarnates decimate the population in starting zones by reducing the number of alts created?
Quote from: Cinnder on April 02, 2014, 12:04:44 AM
I never thought about that before. Did Incarnates decimate the population in starting zones by reducing the number of alts created?
Even on servers with the most active Incarnate trial populations (say, Freedom), that was not my impression. Mostly because Incarnate mission content was still ramping up and trials were reward-limited.
What it did do, at least on some servers, was reduce the number of players seeking to form or join conventional task forces.
Quote from: doc7924 on March 17, 2014, 05:11:20 PM
I remember when I started 40 was the limit for a while until they made it 50.
Now for a long time after you hit 50 you really had not much to do. Incarnates aside if they decided to say make the cap 60, would you think they would have added more powers to the current sets or maybe make some new pools powers for over 50+. Plus slots of course.
Or was 50 good enough.
More boosting in AE. :roll:
Quote from: Cinnder on April 02, 2014, 12:04:44 AM
I never thought about that before. Did Incarnates decimate the population in starting zones by reducing the number of alts created?
By Incarnates, the Union/Defiant server population was already pretty sparse. (It's a great pity that MMOs can't generally announce a server merge without appearing to be dying and without character name woes, even though it's obvious to anyone technical that hardware simply gets much faster; I think CoX would have been much stronger if we'd been squashed together relatively cosily, seeing more characters online at any given time. The STO solution where it appears to be one server, actually a cluster instancing zones with zone chat cross-instance, seems much nicer. But I digress).
But I don't think that really happened with Incarnates because it already happened with Inventions, especially with the potential to grind for Reward Merits (Croatoa, Croatoa, Croatoa... and then ITF, ITF, ITF) and with the time potentially consumed fiddling with the market. Yes, I know I think Inventions are the root of all evil and won't shut up about it; but I think it's hard to argue that people didn't spend more time on new alts when the only thing to do with a 50 was the occasional Hami raid.
Quote from: thunderforce on April 02, 2014, 10:09:21 AM
I think CoX would have been much stronger if we'd been squashed together relatively cosily, seeing more characters online at any given time. The STO solution where it appears to be one server, actually a cluster instancing zones with zone chat cross-instance, seems much nicer. But I digress).
But I don't think that really happened with Incarnates because it already happened with Inventions, especially with the potential to grind for Reward Merits (Croatoa, Croatoa, Croatoa... and then ITF, ITF, ITF) and with the time potentially consumed fiddling with the market. Yes, I know I think Inventions are the root of all evil and won't shut up about it; but I think it's hard to argue that people didn't spend more time on new alts when the only thing to do with a 50 was the occasional Hami raid.
Agreed w/ all this
Actually, for me I only bothered with the incarnate stuff on one toon. Most of the time I usually did just play a different alt so even with all those factors, I always saw plenty of people at sub 50 on my server (Liberty which was apparently sparsely populated compared to some).
If people only played one toon and did nothing but grind away at incarnate stuff (which is of course up to the player) I would consider that a failure of imagination and a tragedy that they never saw all the good combinations that the game offered.
Quote from: TheDevilYouKnow on April 02, 2014, 07:28:49 PM
Actually, for me I only bothered with the incarnate stuff on one toon. Most of the time I usually did just play a different alt so even with all those factors, I always saw plenty of people at sub 50 on my server (Liberty which was apparently sparsely populated compared to some).
If people only played one toon and did nothing but grind away at incarnate stuff (which is of course up to the player) I would consider that a failure of imagination and a tragedy that they never saw all the good combinations that the game offered.
For me I never really saw Incarnate trials as grinding. I wanted the rewards, yes, but I guess I was one of those players for whom being pushed to find their characters' limits was, if done in moderation, generally enjoyable. Lambda and BAF in particular. I saw earning rewards in the trials similar to how I saw leveling low alts: enough effort to be interesting, but not enough to be intolerably tedious. But then again, I didn't, as a rule, PL alts either, except on test (for obvious reasons). I played the game to play the game.
Same here. I like BAF and Lamda. I was always worried that I would ruin other people's time by being awful so I didn't do many beyond those. Plus I played at really odd times so getting a full league together could be tough.
But I actually enjoyed the low level stuff and liked learning the ins and out of how the sets worked so that was still fun for me.
I would have loved to have the cap raised! I wanted more powers especially after the Power Pool Revamps and more levels would mean more choices and that I wouldn't have to sacrifice as many desirable powers as I did
I was happy with 50 being the max level. I like that Incarnate took you even further, without requiring one to make yet another "final" IO build. As it was, I had two toons with Tier 4 Incarnate who were markedly awesome--much more so than a non-Incarnate 50--but they weren't completely unstoppable, which is good, since otherwise there'd have been no challenge. Just my two cents.
With all the added content for 50s', I really don't see a need to have gone to 60. Like JR said, there was more than enough challenge to play at that level. Here's hoping we will all get the chance to play them again some day...