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[Tydeus]

That's both good and bad idea.
Good thing is that it would balance pure builds. Bad thing is that it would hurt hybrids.

Indeed, it's one of the downsides. There are things that can be done to remedy this or at least work towards such, of course. The most obvious of which, would be making respecs free.

Edit: Also, anyone thinking that level 33+ doesn't grant any real benefits, is either naive or ignorant (sorry, that's just the cold hard fact.) If you have a level 35 character for instance you can get 2 more PS than a level 30, that's 16% damage. But wait, that's not actually the end of the story. Normally when you compare something like 18/21 to 24/15, you have a trade off here, one gains ps and or IF, the other gains athletics and or WM. In this situation though, you're not losing anything, so you actually have to calculate the additional damage with the same amount of wpf that you had before, so that 16% damage actually goes a lot further than that, and might end up more like 20%. But then you also have to realize that that person with 2 more ps, also has access to higher athletics than what a level 30 would, so he can actually reach a higher speed bonus with that amount of PS than anyone else, further increasing his possible damage output.

And still, this isn't the end of the discussion for what the difference is between a new player and a veteran, because there's still heirlooms there. Weapons tend to gain around 6.5 - 10% damage (based only on the weapon stats). Armor gains from looms are anywhere from 300% to 12% increase armor value. Consider the fact that you can have that on both your gloves and your body armor for a stacking effect, then have a weapon loomed as well, and have the above advantages from levels, there's really no good argument that can be made to try and trivialize the differences.

[Grumbs]

Indeed, it's one of the downsides. There are things that can be done to remedy this or at least work towards such, of course. The most obvious of which, would be making respecs free.

Edit: Also, anyone thinking that level 33+ doesn't grant any real benefits, is either naive or ignorant (sorry, that's just the cold hard fact.) If you have a level 35 character for instance you can get 2 more PS than a level 30, that's 16% damage. But wait, that's not actually the end of the story. Normally when you compare something like 18/21 to 24/15, you have a trade off here, one gains ps and or IF, the other gains athletics and or WM. In this situation though, you're not losing anything, so you actually have to calculate the additional damage with the same amount of wpf that you had before, so that 16% damage actually goes a lot further than that, and might end up more like 20%. But then you also have to realize that that person with 2 more ps, also has access to higher athletics than what a level 30 would, so he can actually reach a higher speed bonus with that amount of PS than anyone else, further increasing his possible damage output.

And still, this isn't the end of the discussion for what the difference is between a new player and a veteran, because there's still heirlooms there. Weapons tend to gain around 6.5 - 10% damage (based only on the weapon stats). Armor gains from looms are anywhere from 300% to 12% increase armor value. Consider the fact that you can have that on both your gloves and your body armor for a stacking effect, then have a weapon loomed as well, and have the above advantages from levels, there's really no good argument that can be made to try and trivialize the differences.

And thats just looking at someone playing one class. You can go lvl 35 and hybrid so that you have as good melee capability as lvl 30's while having good ranged capability. Especially if you use a xbow with no skill sink except option WPF

As lvl 30 you have to sacrifice one thing for another. As lvl35 you can be great as cavalry and lose nothing in melee, or ranged with melee

[San]

+16% raw damage usually translates to at least double that for final damage because of how damage reduction works.

To me, builds attainable at level 33+ are just much more fun since you can push the boundaries of the game easily. I would prefer to have that higher level be the norm, but I could see how some possible solutions mentioned above would be easier and more stable. Getting unique level 30 builds to work is also quite fun.

[rebbrown]

Do you want a fair battlefield with a progression that caps out at an attainable ceiling (lvl31) OR do you want this to be the next incarnation EverQuest where only the time you can invest matters? On a theoretical basis I don't mind people going beyond 31, but newbies are already behind in gear and raw skill, and putting another layer of unattainable stats on top of it just means that you have 'the old guard' who play their own game and the rest.

Maxing out at 31, perhaps even removing any stat bonusses that 31 gives, seems to be the way to go.

Heirlooms are a nuisance by themself (playing cavalry without a loomed horse will show you the difference looms makes immediately), but adding another level of veteran bias on top of that makes getting into the game for newbies very very difficult. Skill and looms are more than enough to create a gap between old and new players.

[no_rules_just_play]

Maxing out at 31, perhaps even removing any stat bonusses that 31 gives, seems to be the way to go. .

31 is attainable indeed

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in a week

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p.s.: I'll quit if you cap levels, it's as simple as that.

[Grumbs]

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p.s.: I'll quit if you cap levels, it's as simple as that

The devs already said you will get some different kind of rewards so you might find you still want to grind for high level. If not well try to enjoy the gameplay and forget levels

I think you should look at the bigger picture. You're always going on about helping newbies, well OP high level chars is inconsistent with that. Its selfish actually. The high level issue has wide ranging negative effects on the mod. People don't retire as much and they won't respec. This can mean people get bored and don't play and the people who do retire or newbies are at a big disadvantage. High level characters are OP especially if you hybrid across different classes with master of all trade builds. Item balancers can't balance properly with STF's.

[no_rules_just_play]

The devs already said you will get some different kind of rewards so you might find you still want to grind for high level. If not well try to enjoy the gameplay and forget levels

I don't care about any kind of rewards, I want my fucking hybrid I worked for since 2011. I think being able to have 8 athletics and 8 riding isn't too much asked considering I fucked up my first year at the uni because of this game?

Seriously, if you really wanna fuck up the game go on, but this is just madness. I love this game because of the grind, it's an exponential curve ffs. The people that have one single fucking powerstrike point more now have had to grind ages for it, I didn't even make my build stronger I just made my build so that I could play mutliple classes and enjoy myself on multiple builds.

Kinngrimm was lvl 37, I don't believe his epeen did improve very much after he played a full year or more to get from 35 to 37. Give new players a more equal base to start on, but don't take away their long term goal. I know games without long-term goals and I rarely play them, my character is finished anyway so why would I take the time to grind it to higher level?

EDIT: these 'different' kind of rewards would in my case probably make me more effective against new players than I am now, atm I'm just a combination of two lvl 31 builds which I can't use at the same time obviously. I either spawn in cav gear or in infantery gear. Plus, capping the stat gain would lead to more people respeccing, you can say goodbye to your lvl 35 players with only a loomed weapon or armour. They will have everything +3 now.

[korppis]

High level characters are OP especially if you hybrid across different classes with master of all trade builds. Item balancers can't balance properly with STF's.

I disagree with this. IMHO high level chars are acceptable if they are hybrids. It's more game breaking when you use all those extra points to max out one skill and ability through the roof. Being hybrid means that your stats are more balanced and closer to that of level 30. It's just a 2-in-1 build, not one uber specialized build. Also hybrids are really fun to play... I wouldn't want to lose them.

[San]

This might sound a little extreme, but I would be completely fine with wpf that's simply "melee" and "ranged"; hybridizing would involve skill points and the interaction between the melee and ranged split. This would also allow the WPF+WPP system to be much simpler so you wouldn't have 184->180 ranged wpf giving you a good amount wpf in melee. You wouldn't have to sacrifice points on your build just to use alt modes. I feel that the slot system is already sufficient for what items can be used in conjunction with one another.

Being adept at 2 out of cav, infantry, and ranged is the type of hybridization that should require extra work to achieve, while I see little problems having options within each archetype. This would safely allow a max level decrease as well, since IMO pure builds are too good at high levels.

[KingBread]

I don't care about any kind of rewards, I want my fucking hybrid I worked for since 2011. I think being able to have 8 athletics and 8 riding isn't too much asked considering I fucked up my first year at the uni because of this game?

Seriously, if you really wanna fuck up the game go on, but this is just madness. I love this game because of the grind, it's an exponential curve ffs. The people that have one single fucking powerstrike point more now have had to grind ages for it, I didn't even make my build stronger I just made my build so that I could play mutliple classes and enjoy myself on multiple builds.

Kinngrimm was lvl 37, I don't believe his epeen did improve very much after he played a full year or more to get from 35 to 37. Give new players a more equal base to start on, but don't take away their long term goal. I know games without long-term goals and I rarely play them, my character is finished anyway so why would I take the time to grind it to higher level?

EDIT: these 'different' kind of rewards would in my case probably make me more effective against new players than I am now, atm I'm just a combination of two lvl 31 builds which I can't use at the same time obviously. I either spawn in cav gear or in infantery gear. Plus, capping the stat gain would lead to more people respeccing, you can say goodbye to your lvl 35 players with only a loomed weapon or armour. They will have everything +3 now.

I would quit also when benefits will be cut off. I see no reason to not give this 16% more damage to a guy who played for 3 years to achieve this. Im lvl 34 now and 19/24 build. So in your calculations you can say that any new player can easly go 24/12 and have more dmg than me (i have looms he not) heck he can even go 30/12 within a week. And he will be able to 1 hit me in my legs cos i have only 17 armor there(this actually happen to me recenlty) but he will still be infuriated not becouse he deal less dmg or he cant tank more dmg than i. He will be infuriated cos he cant block 90% of my attacks. Good argument in this disscusion is also the diffrence i had when i were a noob when people can get lvl 45, plate armor/archers and i stayed cos i find myself a nice goal to achieve and when i first killed one of those players i felt happy i felt i achieved sth not only by skill but also by making my char able to deal dmg, then i set another goal. Now i also have a LONG TERM goal which will give me 8% more dmg and 4 hp if you want to take this goals out of players and dump down lvling to lvl 31 that can be achieved in a week then you can remove xp and gold just allow people to play with STF.


TL;DR;
I can see that mind set of san/tydeus/grumps is going to a dangerous direction simmilar to what native multiplayer developers went. It will take RPG from CRPG.

[korppis]

Another thought about removing level bonuses after 33... how about if we only remove attribute bonus, but you'd still get 1 skill point each level?

That would lower the min/max gap a bit, but would also leave much needed skill points for hybrids. Or is that too subtle move?

[Eugen]

No, dont catch the nerf train again!

Shure we have a gap. But the idea was (imho) to buff new players not to nerf old ones!

[no_rules_just_play]

Another thought about removing level bonuses after 33... how about if we only remove attribute bonus, but you'd still get 1 skill point each level?

That would lower the min/max gap a bit, but would also leave much needed skill points for hybrids. Or is that too subtle move?

That still won't leave room to put those points into skillpoints. A cap just isn't needed at all, not lik 3 more str and 1 more ps makes such a huge difference...

I don't know what's going on lately, but I'm extremely concerned about the current developments:

* throwing lances had a dmg reduction and you now have more of them. Really? Instead of killing 4 tincans you can now kill 10 fucking peasants.

* there are ideas to cap the levels, yep kill the grunt guys! Now new players will certainly want to play this game! And don't bother about the hybrids, it's not like they are the only players left who care more about fun than epeen.

* There was a proposal to rhe dev team by san, without the community knew, the change the armour stats and difficulty. The idea that this was need was based on some guy (panos) who thibks 18/21 makes you an agiwhore. Good idea guys! Buff the STR players, it's not like they are the bigfest peasant slaughter mschine right? Good grief, there is nothing thst needs a fix here.

MY SUGGESTION (AGAIN): allow the new players to start out at lvl 20, NOT higher and not with any more advantages. We NEED grief in order to keep people playing, both the old guard and the new guard get addicted to this because they have a long term goal they wanna play for daily. Each kill.makes them believe they are one step closer to beating thst shiny knight on his horse.

[Grumbs]

I disagree with this. IMHO high level chars are acceptable if they are hybrids. It's more game breaking when you use all those extra points to max out one skill and ability through the roof. Being hybrid means that your stats are more balanced and closer to that of level 30. It's just a 2-in-1 build, not one uber specialized build. Also hybrids are really fun to play... I wouldn't want to lose them.

Being strong in melee as well as ranged results in shit tonnes of ranged, kind of like it is now. If you want to play melee you should have to take a melee orientated character, not left click on guys from a distance and then do melee when you already softened them up. Players need reasons not to play a ranged character, especially with the way ranged is countered in the game (mostly by other ranged)

[no_rules_just_play]

Grumbs, what level are you? Do you really believe a high level ranged doesn't want to be ably to go a bit more hybrid.and put some points into melee? It's not like 3 ps and <100 wpf is such a big deal, all melee wpf influences the other but this slready doesn't count for ranged.