Disclaimer: This is now a few days old. Sorry about that.
In response to further fan questioning, the age-old level cap discussion was brought to light again last week on the Battle.net board. While Bashiok's lengthy replies did not necessarily give us any new information, per se, he did give us very thorough explanations of what the team was thinking when it set the level sixty cap on Diablo III characters and how this will logically factor in to expansions in the future.
The level cap is not a new topic by any means, but it has been seeing more discussion as of late. Juystafan's poll shows just what DiabloFans members are thinking when they see level cap: in terms of end-game grinding and regular questing.
So, what did frequenters think? It appears that the current majority in the poll believes something similarly to the Battle.net thread's progenitor: less is less. Aveh, the maker, went on to express his opinion that "having a high and very difficult to achieve level cap is actually a good thing for continued playability. In most games, when you hit max level, you're done. You character can no longer increase in strength other than gear that you might receive. What this does subconciously is actually give less reward for more play time. So when you hit max level, everything you do is less valuable-"
And this is where Bashiok, and the team he represents, begins to disagree (see Bashiok on the Level Cap). Despite that explanation--and other iterations before it--there are still those that explain the "low" level cap with other rationalizations. Raseru, posting in response, may be expressing the sentiments of many when he says that "the level cap is obviously just so in the expansion they can increase it."
Less than an hour later, Bashiok responded:
Official Blizzard Quote:
Why is that obviously the reason? I'm not picking on you, I've seen more than a few people say this. Is it because obviously people wouldn't buy an expansion unless it had more levels? That's obviously not true because LoD sold many copies based on an additional act, new classes, new items, runewords, jewels, charms, cubing, 800x600 resolution, etc. etc. So looking at what expansions provide, how is it logical to say that we'd obviously make level 60 the cap so we could finally have some way to sell these pesky expansion things? If you want to draw the WoW comparison, Cataclysm only offers an additional 5 levels, as opposed to the previous expansions' 10 levels each, and it was still the fasting selling PC game in history, topping the previous title holder, Wrath of the Lich King. And you could make the argument "Well there are a lot of things that go into that beyond just some more levels." And I would say "Exactly." If we felt 99 was the best level cap to have in Diablo III, that's what we'd be doing. We work extremely hard to design, produce, test, and support finely polished games with a strong focus on fun, and that is the obvious reason these design decisions are made.
Let me follow that up with a disclaimer - We aren't thinking about an expansion at all yet, but as levels are intended to pace content (we expect you to hit the last level around when you kill the last boss on Hell) it's not unreasonable to assume that additional levels would be present in an expansion, assuming it did offer additional content we'd want more levels to keep pace with. I don't refute the logic that an expansion could bring more levels, but I fully refute any idea that we're making design decisions that directly impact the core of the player progression system so we can have a bullet point on the back of a box.
Is this a confirmation of higher level caps in expansions? Probably. But since the team is only looking forward to release at this point, perhaps even the current level cap is somewhat in the air. Show everyone what you think about the current level cap here.
I think with the level cap matching the gameplay, they would have to increase it with more content. I like how clever Bash is by saying "IF" they add content as if it is a possibility that they wouldn't. Damn him and coy talking abilities.
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I think with the level cap matching the gameplay, they would have to increase it with more content. I like how clever Bash is by saying "IF" they add content as if it is a possibility that they wouldn't. Damn him and coy talking abilities.
Damn all those idiots that whined to hell when a developer doesn't say "maybe" or "if" every sentence, using what they said against them for months because they lied.
Its just a must now or they risk a shit storm everytime if something doesn't happens to be true in the end.
If I play through D2 without too many dia/baalruns in between I would usually end up at around 60-70 when I first beat Hell (LoD), so their decision makes sense. If a new act is added in a future expansion there should definitely be a level cap increase to balance that out, and also an increase of the power of everything beyond that act as well (since your average level per area will then be a little higher). I do find it a little strange though that they are eliminating all level farming in the end-game. With fewer levels and with the slow gain in the end-game, wouldn't it really feel like an accomplishment to gain those last few levels? It doesn't have to be like the 90-99 grind in D2, more like the 75-85 grind which is easily doable by anyone. Make those last few levels really rewarding and it can be seen as interesting end-game content, and also as a pre-end-game phase where you build up gear, wealth and experience (the practice kind). I'm not saying that they should increase the level cap, but perhaps expect people to reach 50-55 by the time they beat Hell.
I also want to know what they plan to replace the end-game with. In D2 the grind was pretty much the only end-game content, except for the Pandemonium Event. With the removal of grinding they have to replace it with something, and it will probably be something challenging.
Well put, although I voted to end the game at 60 I wouldn't mind having a bit of leeway to gain some more levels at the end game (but not many). I think titles and achievements will replace the neverending grind for the most part. The PvP will also be so much better than D2s. I imagine end game to include some interesting co-op random quests with some nice rewards, or a survival mode. Whatever they come up with will be better than my suggestions no doubt.
there will still be some possible grinding at the end. The only people who will be 60 after completing hell will be those who went in every cave and did every side quest they got. I'm sure if you rush through the content and only to what's necessary, you will be around level 55 when you finish.
great point about scaling everything else up as well in harder difficulties. With each expansion and level cap, they have to make nightmare and hell that much hared to match this increase. If you go into nightmare a 30 the first time but then 35 in the expansion, then the monsters also have to match this increase.
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great point about scaling everything else up as well in harder difficulties. With each expansion and level cap, they have to make nightmare and hell that much hared to match this increase. If you go into nightmare a 30 the first time but then 35 in the expansion, then the monsters also have to match this increase.
I was wondering the exact same thing myself. But what about heroes that just breached nightmare before the expansion. Being lvl 30 in a lvl 35 area isn't quite a happy place to be, especially if each level is such a significant increase as they say it is.
Yea, I don't think it would be at all bad if you could grind for some extra levels, but its not bad that its not one of the things you grind towards either. And for all we know there could be end game plans that are something like "requires level 60" and they want to plan it so that you can go right into it after beating Hell.
Well they wouldn't become useless, but you would probably have to go through the expansion content in order to get back to maximum power. Its kind of unavoidable with a RPG expansion, whether it be through new items or more levels.
But no matter what they do they have to balance the game around how powerful the player is, which includes the players level. They want the end of the game to be as difficult as it is, while having each level feel as powerful as it is, and the current number is (presumably) what makes it that way. If each level is more powerful than in D2, it will probably matter if you're a level 60 compared to a level 70, and as such it would mess up things like PvP or how easy the content is with characters of that level. Another thing this lower level cap could do is make it so that levels are more related to completing the game's story instead of grinding to get to the maximum level, which IMO is a good thing.
As for your idea about end game dungeons, which sounds quite a bit like Heroic dungeons from WoW, they can still have that kind of end game content that has mechanics that are more challenging combined with tougher monsters and bosses so that you need to meet gear and skill requirements that you might not have when you first hit the maximum level. So you have to go through some endgame dungeons in order to get access to later and later dungeons. In that way, loot and build can separate people of the max level, and theres some way to prove it instead of just how fast you can kill the boss you've done 1000 times. So its not like all level 60s will be just as powerful as one another.
They may raise the cap in expansion, but not because it has to be 99 or 100. If its planned to get at lvl 60 at the end og the game, what will we do on an extra act? Just more gear or gold? Other than that, the new content should be harder and with more challenges, if you can´t level up it means that your max stat, may not be enough to have a fun experience. Would be possible to finish the expo, but unnecessarily hard.
EDTI: just though this.
- You reach 60 near the final Act 4 boss of "Hell".
- A new act from an expo will be added to "Normal" and "Nightmare" too.
- This means that we gonna have 2 more act before reaching the old Act 4 boss of Hell.
- So, to reach the old Act 4 boss, passing trhough 2 more acts, you gain more levels and find more gear.
- In result, theoretically, the Act 4 boss of Hell will be eassier to beat with an expo (because you have more time till you reach it), than will be if you play the original game.
= How will they fix this paradox?
In D2, they "corrected" this by adding all monsters to act 5 of Nm and Hell, but is boring (and not very creative) to fight monsters non related to the act lore, just for making the game harder, or as hard as it should. Hope they can do better this time.
I think they are planning many expansions until level 99.
and let's say they do just like wow, so from lvl 60 to 99 and adding 10 levels per expansion, that makes it : 4 possible expansions.
Why not? since diablo is more centered around solo mode( story mode) and grinding and since we reach lvl 60 in the end of the game, I think they might do the same thing as guild wars, by releasing alot of expansions, the equivalent of monthly fees, but you pay an expansion at full price every year.
Well to be the eqivalent of monthly fees, if the fee is $15 a month and an expansion is $40, you'd need an expansion every 2 or 3 months. That seems like a bit much. I'd bet the expansions will come out 1.5 years apart or so, like it seems they are planning for SC2.
EDTI: just though this.
- You reach 60 near the final Act 4 boss of "Hell".
- A new act from an expo will be added to "Normal" and "Nightmare" too.
- This means that we gonna have 2 more act before reaching the old Act 4 boss of Hell.
- So, to reach the old Act 4 boss, passing trhough 2 more acts, you gain more levels and find more gear.
- In result, theoretically, the Act 4 boss of Hell will be eassier to beat with an expo (because you have more time till you reach it), than will be if you play the original game.
= How will they fix this paradox?
Hmm... never thought of that, I'd like to know how they will handle this in D3.
Wanna say first and foremost Blizzard, you guys are the best and I wouldn't want anything to change. Now, with this level cap, I don't really agree or disagree with the decision. I have had many private conversations with other enthusiasts of diablo, and the overall consensus was... 60? is this the new 99? or something to the extent of, are you sure you're not talking about World of Warcraft? Now, I understand that it's all just numbers, if let's say the level cap was 10 it doesn't mean that the game won't be just as fun or as interesting as a level cap of 99. However on the other side of the fence I wanna say that the game looks great, no doubts it will be fun, but at the same time I have feelings of getting ripped off. The main reason I enjoy playing and PURCHASING blizzard games is because they're different. You guys aren't blizzard because you make crappy games. I wanna say that you guys are so successful because you're unique and satisfying to many different types of gamers. Now please tell me that because the cap is just a number that it wont overly affect the overall game-play and game content as us fans have been used to and fallen in love with. At the same time, if it is just a number... why not keep diablo UNIQUE?
EDTI: just though this.
- You reach 60 near the final Act 4 boss of "Hell".
- A new act from an expo will be added to "Normal" and "Nightmare" too.
- This means that we gonna have 2 more act before reaching the old Act 4 boss of Hell.
- So, to reach the old Act 4 boss, passing trhough 2 more acts, you gain more levels and find more gear.
- In result, theoretically, the Act 4 boss of Hell will be eassier to beat with an expo (because you have more time till you reach it), than will be if you play the original game.
= How will they fix this paradox?
In D2, they "corrected" this by adding all monsters to act 5 of Nm and Hell, but is boring (and not very creative) to fight monsters non related to the act lore, just for making the game harder, or as hard as it should. Hope they can do better this time.
They can easily increase the difficulty of all the monsters to adjust to stronger characters. If you normally reached nightmare at 30 and the expansion changes that to 35, then they just adjust the monsters to the difficulty of the monsters you would have normally hit at 35 and just adjust the rest of the monsters to this new scale. Minor tweeks to dmg, hp, delays, attack speed, AI can all increase the difficulty and can be changed easily.
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In response to further fan questioning, the age-old level cap discussion was brought to light again last week on the Battle.net board. While Bashiok's lengthy replies did not necessarily give us any new information, per se, he did give us very thorough explanations of what the team was thinking when it set the level sixty cap on Diablo III characters and how this will logically factor in to expansions in the future.
So, what did frequenters think? It appears that the current majority in the poll believes something similarly to the Battle.net thread's progenitor: less is less. Aveh, the maker, went on to express his opinion that "having a high and very difficult to achieve level cap is actually a good thing for continued playability. In most games, when you hit max level, you're done. You character can no longer increase in strength other than gear that you might receive. What this does subconciously is actually give less reward for more play time. So when you hit max level, everything you do is less valuable-"
And this is where Bashiok, and the team he represents, begins to disagree (see Bashiok on the Level Cap). Despite that explanation--and other iterations before it--there are still those that explain the "low" level cap with other rationalizations. Raseru, posting in response, may be expressing the sentiments of many when he says that "the level cap is obviously just so in the expansion they can increase it."
Less than an hour later, Bashiok responded:
Official Blizzard Quote:
Why is that obviously the reason? I'm not picking on you, I've seen more than a few people say this. Is it because obviously people wouldn't buy an expansion unless it had more levels? That's obviously not true because LoD sold many copies based on an additional act, new classes, new items, runewords, jewels, charms, cubing, 800x600 resolution, etc. etc. So looking at what expansions provide, how is it logical to say that we'd obviously make level 60 the cap so we could finally have some way to sell these pesky expansion things? If you want to draw the WoW comparison, Cataclysm only offers an additional 5 levels, as opposed to the previous expansions' 10 levels each, and it was still the fasting selling PC game in history, topping the previous title holder, Wrath of the Lich King. And you could make the argument "Well there are a lot of things that go into that beyond just some more levels." And I would say "Exactly." If we felt 99 was the best level cap to have in Diablo III, that's what we'd be doing. We work extremely hard to design, produce, test, and support finely polished games with a strong focus on fun, and that is the obvious reason these design decisions are made.
Let me follow that up with a disclaimer - We aren't thinking about an expansion at all yet, but as levels are intended to pace content (we expect you to hit the last level around when you kill the last boss on Hell) it's not unreasonable to assume that additional levels would be present in an expansion, assuming it did offer additional content we'd want more levels to keep pace with. I don't refute the logic that an expansion could bring more levels, but I fully refute any idea that we're making design decisions that directly impact the core of the player progression system so we can have a bullet point on the back of a box.
Is this a confirmation of higher level caps in expansions? Probably. But since the team is only looking forward to release at this point, perhaps even the current level cap is somewhat in the air. Show everyone what you think about the current level cap here.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
Its just a must now or they risk a shit storm everytime if something doesn't happens to be true in the end.
Well put, although I voted to end the game at 60 I wouldn't mind having a bit of leeway to gain some more levels at the end game (but not many). I think titles and achievements will replace the neverending grind for the most part. The PvP will also be so much better than D2s. I imagine end game to include some interesting co-op random quests with some nice rewards, or a survival mode. Whatever they come up with will be better than my suggestions no doubt.
great point about scaling everything else up as well in harder difficulties. With each expansion and level cap, they have to make nightmare and hell that much hared to match this increase. If you go into nightmare a 30 the first time but then 35 in the expansion, then the monsters also have to match this increase.
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I was wondering the exact same thing myself. But what about heroes that just breached nightmare before the expansion. Being lvl 30 in a lvl 35 area isn't quite a happy place to be, especially if each level is such a significant increase as they say it is.
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That's a fair point, but I think it comes back to it being easier for Blizzard to balance PvP when they know everyone will be 60. Also, end game PvE.
That's a fair point, but I think it comes back to it being easier for Blizzard to balance PvP when they know everyone will be 60. Also, end game PvE.
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I do like crittercutter's option to go back. It's probably boring to kill simple dudes with a lvl 60 hero, but at least you get all the quest rewards.
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As for your idea about end game dungeons, which sounds quite a bit like Heroic dungeons from WoW, they can still have that kind of end game content that has mechanics that are more challenging combined with tougher monsters and bosses so that you need to meet gear and skill requirements that you might not have when you first hit the maximum level. So you have to go through some endgame dungeons in order to get access to later and later dungeons. In that way, loot and build can separate people of the max level, and theres some way to prove it instead of just how fast you can kill the boss you've done 1000 times. So its not like all level 60s will be just as powerful as one another.
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EDTI: just though this.
- You reach 60 near the final Act 4 boss of "Hell".
- A new act from an expo will be added to "Normal" and "Nightmare" too.
- This means that we gonna have 2 more act before reaching the old Act 4 boss of Hell.
- So, to reach the old Act 4 boss, passing trhough 2 more acts, you gain more levels and find more gear.
- In result, theoretically, the Act 4 boss of Hell will be eassier to beat with an expo (because you have more time till you reach it), than will be if you play the original game.
= How will they fix this paradox?
In D2, they "corrected" this by adding all monsters to act 5 of Nm and Hell, but is boring (and not very creative) to fight monsters non related to the act lore, just for making the game harder, or as hard as it should. Hope they can do better this time.
what? The equivalent of monthly fees?
60 to 99? You really think that?...
Oh boy..
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dont be to critical im no pro :rolleyes:
They can easily increase the difficulty of all the monsters to adjust to stronger characters. If you normally reached nightmare at 30 and the expansion changes that to 35, then they just adjust the monsters to the difficulty of the monsters you would have normally hit at 35 and just adjust the rest of the monsters to this new scale. Minor tweeks to dmg, hp, delays, attack speed, AI can all increase the difficulty and can be changed easily.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team