Bashiok on the Level Cap

Bashiok posted on the Battle.net forums for the first time this week to tell us a few things we know and a few things we didn't on Blizzard's reasoning behind DiabloWiki.com - Diablo III Diablo III's level cap.

Official Blizzard Quote:



Good discussion! It's an old topic I know but there's a lot of good points and counter-points being brought up.

So just to reiterate some things and maybe draw it back to more specific bullet points of why a lower level cap is (we believe) better for the game:

  • We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. You can think of the amount of power a character gains through leveling as a bucket of orange soda, and each level as a glass. We have to have an end-point and so we can only scale player power to that point. By having fewer glasses they can be filled more, and each one has more delicious thirst-quenching orange soda. Spread that same bucket out over 99 or 200 glasses, and each level is less satisfying (if not downright unnoticeable).
  • We want level benefits to be as clear as possible. Some people have suggested "Well, let us hit level 60, but then keep giving us points after that." which isn't a solution, it's the same problem except worse because there's no actual tracking mechanism built in (ie levels). We also want to avoid providing level benefits at irregular intervals (although this may be unavoidable for trait points), as some people suggest "Let us level to 99 and just give us the rewards every few levels". This goes back to the first point: We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. Trait points may not come every level, but the sum of the other increases from leveling, we feel, are still very significant and maintain our intent.
  • Because of the extreme leveling curve in Diablo II, balance really couldn't be adjusted around level 99 characters. This meant that the last 15 or so levels were not just minimal increases in power, but in most cases provided absolutely nothing to a characters ability to effectively complete Hell difficulty and get items, which did significantly improve their character. Instead, leveling to 99 became a status symbol more than anything.
  • We can have long term status symbols people can go for that are extremely visual, show to others the effort you've put in, but not attach that to something like a character level. Along with artisans, achievements, gems, runestones, and all the other various character customization progressions, we still have some surprises left in store on this front.
  • Balance isn't a main point for a tighter level system, but it is one side benefit. With the sum changes and improvements to all of the core designs, we believe that we can have a more reasonably challenging game throughout (as we can fairly clearly know how strong someone should be at any point in time) without attempting to create "challenge" through cheesy tactics.
  • The game paces out progression very well through all of the various customization systems, which are far more interesting and important to an end-game character, as opposed to chasing a number.
I'm sure I'm leaving out a good point or two. The real bottom line is that we understand people like having those long term goals, and those feel good to chase and eventually achieve, but we do not feel one needs to be character level, and in fact making character levels a long term goal brings a great many negative effects with them (keeping in mind our goals for how important each level should feel). We do not doubt that people will feel good about chasing the long term goals of building the perfect character, getting a playtime intensive achievement, leveling up an artisan to max, or any of the other many individual long term progression systems the game offers.
Clearly Blizzard has many longterm achievements lined up for us in Diablo III, and we can surely look forward to many status symbols to work towards. The post is pretty self explanatory, so there really isn't much else to say other than feel free to revive (or rather semi-revive) the discussion about Diablo III's level cap.

Comments

  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.
Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes