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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
O and the Lvl cap is a very good idea I just hope later on as they are making the expansions they dont screw up and make it way to much like WoW I mean these are way to different games. Can't wait till they lease the game. Is D3 gonna be pay to play does ne1 know for sure? :banana: