Guild Wars 2

That would be the ‘point of no return’ for me. No level grind please. It adds nothing and has nothing to do with skill or progression. It only promotes unhealthy Obsessive compulsive behaviour.

Shen Slayer.3058:

I really hope so, that’s probably the only way to retain veteran players, beside new content.

Depending on how far you’re going with “veteran players”, most would actually leave with more vertical progression – be it higher gear rarity tiers, or higher level caps.

GW1 had 20 levels for 6 years before GW2. People still play it, many I’ve recently heard are people who left GW2 to return to GW1. I would not doubt that the high vertical progression of GW2 is part of it (alongside the reduced story quality, and other certain systems or aspects of systems).

New players would likely not give a kitten .

No level cap needed. Simply harder content/zones will fill that role.

What does raising the level cap even accomplish beyond making gear obsolete? Just wastes everyone’s time to get to the new level cap and end up in the same exact boat we’re in. Now everybody is 90 and asking for the same stuff we were asking about when we were 80.

No.

15 characters.

I think the best way to add more progression would be to add advanced classes not a level cap raise. Basically it would give you the choice to go down one of two paths for any given profession or just to remain as a vanilla class.

For example a Ranger at level 80 could choose to become a Druid or a Hunter or just remain a Ranger and progression to utilities, weapon sets and traits could have their own progression from there.

Only was it should happen is with a content increase to support the level increase, and legendary/ascended gear would HAVE to level with the character.

My money is they will place a special item in game as part of their RNG system.. if you get it you can become a special snowflake and be allowed to increase your level by one.. its a one use item only like the collection shards.. once you find it (rarer than a ghosty dog) the item can still drop for thrill and teeth grinding effect, but unusable and account bound! ..

No.

Just… no!

Want to keep a veteran like me (with 7 level 80s) around? Offer new content. Plain and simple.

Why raise the level cap? The only way this would be acceptable would be to introduce no weapons, armor, or trinkets that required a level above 80. This is primarily because of both the max gear stats and the transmutation that people pour into their level 80 gear.

And if that happens, what’s the point of being level 85 or 90? There would be no point whatsoever. So it makes zero sense to increase the level cap.

I just say, I’m personally for an increase, once Anet finally brings the first expansion together with lots of general improvements for overall Character Progression, like adding Sub Classes and linking the increasse of the Level Cap with the new added Character Progression System(s)

Raising the Level Cap must not automatically mean, that it must also raise any vertical progression.
People who believe this, are just blinded by their hate and prejudices they have from old classical asia grinder like MMORPGs which become just more and more of a chore, so more you progress with your character…

dekou.6012:

I think that quote is from the time before Ascended, which explains a lot.

Nope, it was in a Reddit AMA while players were freaking out about Ascended.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

Ascended wasn’t fully implemented, but Mike made that statement with full knowledge of Ascended gear as part of the game.

Palador.2170:

What I hope they do is to keep the real level cap at 80, then introduce some kind of secondary levels, perhaps as a secondary class. Telling someone “Your level 80 elementalist is no longer max level. Go gain more levels and then re-earn all your gear” is bad. Telling them “Your level 80 elementalist can now gain some levels as a ranger, and you’ll have the option of equipping medium armor and a long bow, if you care to gain the levels and earn the gear” is a LOT better from a player satisfaction point of view.

I’d like to see this and maybe have (what D&D calls) a prestige class. For example: You have a ranger, cross it with an elementalist to get something akin to an Arcane Archer. Or a thief crossed with a mesmer to get something like a Shadow Dancer.

What do you want to bet they will raise the level cap one day.

They wait till most long term level 80’s have ascended weapons on at least their main char then abruptly, with only one sentence in the game release notes to announce it, they raise the level cap to 100 and simultaneously announce a new gear level, craftable with time gated account bound mats only obtainable in a new map with nodes that can only be harvested once daily per account.

You read it here. Astral Projections future update guide.

Increasing the level cap does very little because the people that are campaigning for it will just reach it in a week or two and then we’re back to square one. If you make it so even they find it a pain to get it, then this drags the whole player base along. Let’s consider the people that are struggling to make a legendary, and then note the players that have many of them.

Consider the ascended grind. Actually, if we assume only 1 player running 1 build and you ignored ascended armor completely, the grind really isn’t that bad and can be obtained via dedicated “normal” play of say 1-2 hours a day or less. Problem comes when someone wants to make all characters. Even if say the grind to 90 was reasonable; it’d suck to level alts even more. Unless of course levels are account bound. Then I’d consider it. :p

And the balance of the game is revolved around level 80 characters. Considering how balance is now, now is not the time to introduce more power creep otherwise balancing people across say 80-85 would be a great problem.

Increasing the cap with new content would just create gated content, which doesn’t really work with this game.

In the end, leveling is merely a number. I want 80 because they want access to all the content in the game. The feeling of being stronger than a lower level character is nice, but merely a novelty that makes one message their friends about it when it happens and then gets forgotten about a few days later.

No matter how fun or good something sound
assume a 0% propability if it’s only players talking about it and a
75% propability if Anet officialy announces it (I guess about a quarter of their promised goods are forgotten)
10% if devs talk about it on a forum

You know how it goes, if there is outcry from the community that we DON’T want something, we get it!

kitten .9460:

You know how it goes, if there is outcry from the community that we DON’T want something, we get it!

I DONT want raids.
I DONT want precursor crafting
I DONT want ….

Sorry; They just reduced the levels.

Reading the wiki ( and playing the game ), I can only see 14 points during experience gain to 80, at which the character improves attributes, plus 10 intermediate points in which the character could improve via traits.

Of course it could be changed to the following: Be given a new blue weapon every 10000 xp and say the game has 486 levels.

kitten .9460:

You know how it goes, if there is outcry from the community that we DON’T want something, we get it!

If this is true then we ain’t getting new (like really new…like professions, weapons, races, maps, dungeons, mounts, capes, I could go on for hours…) content, or bug fixes (bugs? what bugs?!) but the level cap might get a rise then… yay…

I feel there are just enough major rewards for a 20-level system, like GW1. Level 80 would become 20, 76 would become the new 19, etc. That’s all we need. Minor rewards can be at tighter intervals if you divide the experience bar up a little.

Less is more.

I wouldn’t mind a restricted version of an increased level cap, as long as it wasn’t bound to gear. For example, say that players can now reach level 90, but the only thing you gain past level 80 is increased trait points, allowing you to create even more powerful builds (and opening up possibilities for soloing of dungeons and other end-game content). Gear remains locked at level 80, and if you go into PvP/WvW, you get downscaled back to 80, so balance would not be an issue.

I don’t think a level cap increase is needed. At this point it would just kitten a lot of people off. Probably should have had a lower level cap in the first place.

You know, it’s entirely possible to increase the level cap and not increase gear level…but use that to…oh, I don’t know…throw an extra skill or two and traits in the mix…you know, things that might make the game a little more interesting, but not something that you absolutely must do. Would I like it, I personally could care less.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Another voice crying in the wilderness. The game needs new stuff to do. This does not have to come with a level cap increase. All a level cap increase would do is make people re-do all their max level gear, and make down-leveling even more OP than it already is.

And all the people I talk to in-game don’t want a level cap increase. See what I did there?

Yeah I’m sure the few people you’ve talk to about it represents the majority.

Anyways, Anet has said in the past that they will raise the level cap if they decide they need to, likely in a future expansion.

But at the rate they’re going we’ll never get an expansion so no need to worry.

Fernling.1729:

Quote from Mike O’Brien

“we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2”

A quote from nearly two years ago. And since we know how fluid the development process is, I would say it’s past it’s “good until” date.

I really hope they don’t raise the level cap, it’d just break everything for no reason. You can add more stuff to do without a level grind.

Raising the level cap doesn’t serve any function in any game so there really isn’t a point in raising it.

Behellagh.1468:

Fernling.1729:

Quote from Mike O’Brien

“we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2”

A quote from nearly two years ago. And since we know how fluid the development process is, I would say it’s past it’s “good until” date.

I was just saying it’s still up in the air and with the information they’ve given us, it’s more likely they will. There’s more evidence pointing to a level increase than there is evidence saying they won’t.
They could have easily jumped on the forums and said “We will not increase the level cap.”, surely a bunch of people would be happy to hear that. They didn’t have a problem coming to the forums to say that they will not introduce the VIP system outside china.

I’m pretty sure they will raise the level cap with an expansion. And I don’t think it’ll be a huge deal….but yeah, there are definitely pros and cons associated with it.

Hopefully it won’t come with a new tier of gear though.

Vayne.8563:

I’m pretty sure they will raise the level cap with an expansion. And I don’t think it’ll be a huge deal….but yeah, there are definitely pros and cons associated with it.

Hopefully it won’t come with a new tier of gear though.

Are you meaning you want your current exotic/ascended to scale to the new level, or you just have to reacquire new level 90(orwhatever) exotic/ascended gear?

I do understand new tier of gear means something after ascended, but want to make sure I got it right.

One of the many many many things I love about GW1 is the small level cap. Get to level 20 quick (even quicker in Factions), get max gear, then do STUFF. Don’t have to worry about grindy crap, just explore and do the story. Loved it. Still do I still play GW1 from time to time.

What GW2 needs is more STUFF. More lands, more story, more plot, more skins, more toys, more things to DO. Not more numbers.

Palador.2170:

What I hope they do is to keep the real level cap at 80, then introduce some kind of secondary levels, perhaps as a secondary class. Telling someone “Your level 80 elementalist is no longer max level. Go gain more levels and then re-earn all your gear” is bad. Telling them “Your level 80 elementalist can now gain some levels as a ranger, and you’ll have the option of equipping medium armor and a long bow, if you care to gain the levels and earn the gear” is a LOT better from a player satisfaction point of view.

That would be cool. Would be more like GW1 as well. I still wonder what caused people to forget to be able to dual-class in the last 250 years, when back in the day, it was the norm.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Shen Slayer.3058:

I really hope so, that’s probably the only way to retain veteran players, beside new content.

Depending on how far you’re going with “veteran players”, most would actually leave with more vertical progression – be it higher gear rarity tiers, or higher level caps.

GW1 had 20 levels for 6 years before GW2. People still play it, many I’ve recently heard are people who left GW2 to return to GW1. I would not doubt that the high vertical progression of GW2 is part of it (alongside the reduced story quality, and other certain systems or aspects of systems).

New players would likely not give a kitten .

Yep, during Halloween I frequently ran both GW1 and GW2 at the same time, dual-hanging in both Lion’s Arch(es). There were tonnes of people in GW1 who were saying how they used to play GW2 but they came back to GW1 because of how much better it is.

Fluoride in the water. We’ve seen the bandits pouring it in the pipes in queensdale.

I dont’ know. But seeing the PAX interview in 2013. There is probably no new gear tier after ascended for a while. So I would be suprised if they introduced new lvl90 gear with better stats.

raising level cap is bad, and should never happen, ever.

fellyn.5083:

IndigoSundown.5419:

And all the people I talk to in-game don’t want a level cap increase. See what I did there?

Yeah I’m sure the few people you’ve talk to about it represents the majority.

I can see that sarcasm was lost on you, or did you not read the other posts?

Fernling.1729:

Behellagh.1468:

Fernling.1729:

Quote from Mike O’Brien

“we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2”

A quote from nearly two years ago. And since we know how fluid the development process is, I would say it’s past it’s “good until” date.

I was just saying it’s still up in the air and with the information they’ve given us, it’s more likely they will. There’s more evidence pointing to a level increase than there is evidence saying they won’t.
They could have easily jumped on the forums and said “We will not increase the level cap.”, surely a bunch of people would be happy to hear that. They didn’t have a problem coming to the forums to say that they will not introduce the VIP system outside china.

I’m not 100% certain, but I think they have stated that they don’t intend to. IIRC, the statement was – paraphrasing – that there’s no intention to, but they won’t throw it off the table completely.

But they won’t really throw anything off the table. So that’s not saying much.

They’re well aware of the fallout that occurred after the introduction of Ascended gear. If they were to introduce another, even higher tier, the backlash would be immeasurably worse considering that acquiring Ascended gear is a much bigger grind than Exotics were. (I suspect the only reason players grudgingly accepted Ascended gear was because it does serve a role as a very expensive, long-term goal to work towards, while still not being too much more powerful than Exotic gear.)

However, the future is never certain, and ANet’s been careful to use language that doesn’t rule them out ever raising the level cap or introducing new equipment tiers, because 4 years down the line, maybe that’s what the game would truly need. (It would also be a game that I would be uninterested in playing, but that’s another story.) It’s pretty standard PR policy, and it shouldn’t be taken to mean a confirmation in itself.

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

I’m pretty sure they will raise the level cap with an expansion. And I don’t think it’ll be a huge deal….but yeah, there are definitely pros and cons associated with it.

Hopefully it won’t come with a new tier of gear though.

Are you meaning you want your current exotic/ascended to scale to the new level, or you just have to reacquire new level 90(orwhatever) exotic/ascended gear?

I do understand new tier of gear means something after ascended, but want to make sure I got it right.

I want whatever tier of gear there is to be easily attainable. I don’t want to grind for gear. I didn’t like making ascended stuff…and I still don’t. I’m never going to like making ascended stuff. It’s not fun or interesting…to me anyway.

Raising the levelcap and bringing in new level gear is like devs saying: “hey idiots, here’s some shinies, now give us your money”. It’s just empty content. If you fail to see this, you should actually lose all your money to them. I know I’m not going to do that.

No It most probably and hopefully will not.

It would frustrate a very large part of the player base. Horizontal progression would mean enemies will get higher levels but we will be at 80 as it should be. it would promote team play to do so. I can see a reason to create higher level enemies though… Make a hard mode with all enemies 2-5 levels higher then they are now…

If the level cap would change I would quit; It would destory all need for my present gear, all the effort regarding grinds for ascendeds and would leave my 15 characters underpowered. I used to have 1 main and sveral alts, At the moment I have 7 characters with full map and full stories, leaving me 8 other alts.

I already was annoyed by ascended gear, which was unneccessary, caused the balance to change and make the game more unbalanced. After the change DPS was eventually reduced by 5 % – 7% to compensate, but also on all other armor (read from junk to exotics…) making exotics equivalent to the old rares. It was easy to run most dungeons in rara and masterwork armor before, atm doing dungeons with rare and exotics tend to leave a underpowered character. who needs assistance often from exotic and higher clad ppl

That’s also why the levelling experience had to be “simplified” I’m noticing the one hit-kills with a fully geared character are now from lvl 1 to lvl 40 (= noticable with a fully equipped exotic melee charater (w. food) doing map completion which used to be lvls 1-5 or 1-10maybbe 1-15 at max. which changes the easy kills from the starting area to all map parts above LA (frostgorge 70-80/ fireheart rise 60-70 and ron marches 50-60 excluded ) Which was a direct result from the last 2 big patches, which were mostly needed because charatcers had to much DPS due to an unplanned introduction of armor….

What would they raise the cap for? To give people something to do for 2-3 hours (or 2-3 seconds if they have tomes) per character?

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

What would they raise the cap for? To give people something to do for 2-3 hours (or 2-3 seconds if they have tomes) per character?

It’s not the player level which is important to focus on, Tomes will allow all players to be insta-ed to a higher level, but all your gear will be useless… or at least a serious amount lower in dps.

If they raise the level cap and don’t introduce a mechanism for keeping my exotic and especially ascended gear at top level, I would leave the game.

please no. enough kitten grinding level

I vote to lower the cap to zero or raise it to infinity.

Raise lvl cap:

• new exotics
• new legendaries
• new ascended
• new 80+ zone

Question is: for what?
It’s waste of time and resources to do that. Making people level up to 90? 100? Majority of veterans have many unused Tomes of Knowledge.
That would set people on rage regarding legendaries and ascended gear.
Would require to add many new crating mats, new Tier etc.

It’s better if they’ll focus on new maps, new content alone.

We don’t need Korean mindset here.

I was actually thinking the other day: Why have a level cap at all?

It’s not like we stop accumulating skill points.

I might have been slightly influenced by D3’s basically uncapped Paragon system. I mean, in d3, if you see someone with a paragon level of 700, you know that this is not someone who is just messing about.

I want a lvl300 elementalist, please.

You literally wouldn’t have to change a single other thing about the game, just don’t stop the levelling process at 80 and let us go on and play as usual, but now knowing that our levels will reflect just HOW AWESOME WE REALLY ARE.

okay?
okay.

I woulnd’t have any problem with a new level cap only with new zones of course. It was always a nice experience to level up the old characters in WoW and getting something new. Imho the game is completely stale from a character development standpoint. There is no point in getting additional gear, the only thing I can do is standing around in Lion’s Arch since I ran all the stuff a million of times and there is no point doin additional stuff since there is nothing that makes your character better.

However, there are other options to ‘increase’ your abilities: remember GW1 with the reputation farm and linked skills? That was pretty cool, I liked it. Also there is the system of the paragon levels from Diablo 3 which I like. It adds a little bit of more power and gives you the feel of reward.

I am sure a new campaign like Cantha or Elona would be nice too, ofc. But there must be something else other than dress-up doll.

Hopefully never. I’d hate to have to grind more levels just to get to the end-game again.

Vayne.8563:

I’m pretty sure they will raise the level cap with an expansion. And I don’t think it’ll be a huge deal….but yeah, there are definitely pros and cons associated with it.

Hopefully it won’t come with a new tier of gear though.

Then you aren’t thinking. A level cap raise is a huge deal.

We can assume that they will scale up legendaries. We can’t assume the same for Ascended, and it definitely won’t happen for Exotic gear, unless the new levels don’t come with higher level (not higher tier) gear to begin with. The mere idea of the dozens or even hundreds of hours spent gearing characters in Ascended going to waste is frightening, and, for many players, gamebreaking.

But let’s ignore gear for the moment. A new level cap would also add more trait points. That’s a big impact, as it would completely change the number of builds and the strength of these. The balance of the game would completely shift. That’s not necessarily a bad thinig – it might even be a positive – but it’s certainly a huge deal.

Now, if there is no effect gear and/or traits, then the new levels would be fundamentally pointless.