Level Capping

[Duffman]

I personally can't stand it. Like anything, it has it's pro's and con's. To me,
these things have to many cons to make it worth doing. I hope there are less and less
of these events in the new patch.



Level capping pro,
- Ability to drop a decent item for a lower level without 1~6 lvl75s WASTING a lvl30/40/50/60 NM(s)
- Ability to have a higher level join in an area/event with his lower level buddy.


Level capping con,
- Costs too much to buy gear for lvl20,30,40,50,60,70 etc.
- Takes too much room for the above sets of gear even with the NPC armor storage (not all complete sets)
- Takes too much time to change gear when you get a quick /tell "Hey, wanna do xxxx event?"
- thinking "Yes, I do but I'll have to change gear and hope I remembered everything
- Confusing, to me anyway. Eventually I will get the correct gear and set off for whatever but
I really have to make sure I grabbed everything.



For me, it's all gear related: money, storage, confusion/time.
You, of course, are entitled you your opinion but I think this was the shittiest Idea ever.
At least they could've implemented some sort of armor attribute morphing. I'll explain. I don't
know which game but I've heard there was another MMORPG that did this. You could wear the same
gear and the stats would just adjust down to the apropriate range of the lvl cap.
That is probably one severly huge programming project to implement.


Do you like them the way they are or do you think they suck balls too?



Not much of a flame; I'll edit this and toss in a bunch of "F" bombs if it makes you happier.

 

[Tagrineth]

I like level caps. They help ensure that no matter what, some things will be hard and stay that way. The gear thing is a valid concern, but attribute morphing would be broken.

Hauberk or God gear would, when scaled down, be quite broken if they weren't stripped of their stats entirely. At level 30, you simply can't get gear that adds to all your stats, or gear that adds str, dex, att, and acc.

Scaling gear like that would make it impossible for lower level players to attempt level capped missions. You'd end up with groups wanting only groups of 75s so they could wear scaled down God/Abj./whatever other high level gear, destroying the balance of the capped zone.

 

[Duffman]

Yeah, I could see that happening. (all 75's doing them and excluding lower lvls).
I made a post on Balance issues in the "general" section too. I forgot to add
that as a PRO "Ensuring difficult things stay difficult".

I'd probably like the lvl cap much more if gear wasn't such an issue. It really
turns me off to have my money, space, and time changing sunk into gear that
isn't going to be used on a daily basis.

Meh! I guess we can't have everything. Nobody said this game or any game
would be "perfect". This game could've continued with no level capping and
would've been just fine with me.

 

[kaikyaku]

I personally like the lvl capped areas. It’s just fun for me to be on an equal basis with some one who is higher or lower than me lvl wise.

When COP came out I was still very much at the lower lvl’s and this gave me an opportunity to fight along side some of my higher lvl friends I had met. Now that I’m a bit higher it gives me an opportunity to play along with some newer folks on the same equal terms.

Gil comes and goes… I really don’t mind sinking it into Stored gear at 25, 40, 50 and AF for both melee and mage cloths. I like the fact there are some areas where throwing a 75 at it doesn’t solve the problem.

Only thing I hate is the huge cut in xp you get in those places.

 

[MajorHavoc]

I hate the fact that you have to get gear together when there is a spur of the momment run. I try to store as many sets as I can with the NPC but some armor is just not worth getting a complete set.

My personal solution was to have my mules store my gear according to level. For example, I have a mule holding 1-20 eq. Another is storing 20-30 and so on. I hope the new update that is supposed to offer other storage options, helps out.

 

[Courtney]

The big advantages of levelling capping are that the developers can provide content to low level players, without making it so easy that a single L75 can complete it with a few sword swings.

As painful as the Promyvions were, I think most people had a feeling of achievement when when they completed it and stepped into Lufaise for the first time. Had it not been level capped, you would have needed to be 75 to do it, or only needed a L75 character to hit the mob twice to defeat it. And I still think there needs to be difficult content in the game that everyone can still experience.

There were some problems in the execution, but overall it was a good (if sometimes annoying) idea...

 

[tonicfly]

I love the lvl capped areas. It presents a challenge and allows you to get back to the basics with your jobs that are higher lvl. Also for me considering im a pack rat i keep most gear that i have and farm and slowy turn my stored gear into alot of the +1 items. One of my LS friends pretty much said it the other night when we were lvl'n a lower job through the dunes. and i happened to be one of the few people where most of my gear was +1. He straight out said you have got to have more +1 gear than anyone i know cuz everytime you get a new lvl you bust out with yet another +1 piece of gear. I by far can say i have alot of gil in the game i seldom stay over 100k gil i just farm and have slowly built up what i have in gear becuase i fell in love with capped events early on in the game. every chance i get i am doing a bcnm with a friend, garrisons, or fighting the 2-3 dragon (which i love to do)

 

[Duffman]

Wow, It appears I'm in the minority here. If I was making game decisions at
a developement standpoint, I'd have to congratulate myself. It seems level
capping was a big hit and a lot of you seem to enjoy it. Overall, a good
business decision.

I guess the old addage can apply here:
"You can please some people some of the time but,
you cant' please all of the people all of the time."


I did get a sense of satisfaction when I stepped into Lufaise for the first time.
I had to go through all of my afore mentioned "CONs" to do it though.

I'd still like to see less of this in the new add-on.

 

[Courtney]

You also have to remember the game at the time CoP was being implemented. There was a huge amount of criticism of RoZ because there was no low level content. You can't even start the missions until you're Rank 6 and L65 or so, and this meant that none of the NA players could initially even start the missions.

I think most people would agree that missions should be a challenge, and that you should feel some sort of achievement when you finish them. The only real options are to either level cap, or to restrict the missions to only the endgame players...

 

[Pompidou]

I agree with Duffman on the criticism of needing so much redundant gear, but I like level capping because it means you actually have to earn your victory. People are too quick to grab a level 75 or two and leech any content they can. It's a spinoff of the easiest-job-only mission-party-formation mentality. Why work for your rewards when you can get them almost for free? Level caps make people put some effort into a game noone wants to put any effort into.

 

[Mishaela]

All I hafto say is f-!k that stupid little elvaan Prishe and her somehow 1-shotting a Mammet with her bare hands when my 40-cap party hadto take a bunchof strategic effort. Whatever.

I dont so much mind the level cap, but most of the crap they have in these areas makes no sense. "Oh yah we put seals on the sewers so the monsters there would be weakened but they're still gonna have 8-12 levels on you guys lolol"...right.

 

[Sabia]

I hate level cap areas just because of the gear, I think it'd be best if you did level capped areas and SE filled your slots with 'phantom gear' that way nobody's gimp and nobody's overpowered. Granted stuff like meds/ammo would be provided by players, but I've got hundreds of thousands of gil worth of gear that I just can't get rid of due to level cap areas.

Phantom gear would make everything a little more balanced and sure as hell would cause a lot less stress, more spontainious participation in said areas and a lot more happy players with inventory space.

 

[Mokk]

I'm of the opinion if i gained a level i shouldn't have to be restricted to a lower level to get something done, it's a silly conept IMO. Why bother working yourself up in the first place if the content is just going to stunt your growth for the sake of difficulty anyway?

 

[Duffman]

..."Oh yah we put seals on the sewers so the monsters there would be weakened but they're still gonna have 8-12 levels on you guys lolol"...right...

I HAD to quote this one, because I was thinking the same thing to myself
when I went into the Phonema Aquaducts for the very first time. "Self, oh
here we go with a lame explanation why I'll be lvl40 past this door."


I really liked Sabia's suggestion. It's parallel to the morphing-atribute armor
but without the complicated math and balance. I do like that. I guess I
don't hate hate the stuff but the gear issue is extremely annoying. I guess
I'll do my best to live with it just like a lot of you guys do.

 

[Skaw]

Level capping is gay as shit when Square already has code in thier vault that would scale difficulty of Battles based on the level of the players in the party. They used it in FF8, so why not just reimplement it instead of causing so much headache?

 

[Tagrineth]

Level capping is gay as shit when Square already has code in thier vault that would scale difficulty of Battles based on the level of the players in the party. They used it in FF8, so why not just reimplement it instead of causing so much headache?

FF8's scaling sucked ass. Mob stats didn't scale very well at all, and most Bosses had level caps set in place, probably because some of them (for example, the machine thing in the Lunatic Pandora) would've been crazy hard if it had been able to exceed level 42. (I kid you not, I was level 100 here and the boss was 42.. the next boss after, the one that absorbed Rinoa, was capped at 48...)

Not only that but your own characters' levels didn't do much either. Junctioning was the main focus, and to that end, most of the game is actually easier at a lower level.. if you have great Junction-based stats set up, a party of level 1~5 characters will fight pipsqueak enemies. Omega Weapon, for example, only has like 50,000 HP at level 1 (compared to 1 million at 100).

 

[Skaw]

I didn't say they had to use it directly. It could be modified to be tailored to this game.

It's a great alternative to level capping imo, when they have people bitching to them about storage, but then bitch back about limitations in place because of the PS2.

 

[hellstorm]

what i always thought was funny is how batallias

 

[hellstorm]

what i always thought was funny is how batallias

armor guys yet no wepon storage or accessory storage.

lol computer had hickup and sent some how

 

[Uzor]

personally I think level capping was one of the best ideas SE ever came up with. Cause in all honestly, in most cases, level 75 is was too overpowered for normal missions.

However, if they DID make uncapped missions hard too, people would still complain that they are too hard, and thus, SE still fails.

As an example, look at Zilart. That expansion plain out SUCKED mission-wise. I could seriously probably solo my way past almost all missions except for maybe 8 and Ark Angels. Heck, even the last boss is friggin' SOLOABLE.

Do you honestly think a last boss should be soloable? <.<; I sure as hell don't.

That is why I loved CoP, it actually provided a challange. It required time, sacrifices, and in most cases a valid strategy. You can't just ppick up a random group of people at 75 and mow through all the missions in a couple of hours, it requires planning a strategy, going there, preparing etc.

Completing SM doesn't give any sense of satisfaction. It was just simply way too easy. CoP hoewver provided a little challange because of its level capped missions, and thus not EVERYONE on the entire server that's 75 have completed it. CoP gave a bit of satisfaction for completing it.

In all honesty, if it wasn't for the slight challange that CoP provided, I probably wouldn't be playing this game anymore. It gave me renewed hope of SE's normal incompetence (sp?).