It's always bugged me a little that there is a level cap on the game. You get to max level farm for the best gear in the game and then there is nothing left to do but PvP. There is no way to make your character more powerful other than swapping out gear and training new pets. Extra experience gained from finishing side quests and fighting monsters is wasted. Incentive to continue questing is lost, There is nothing more to gain until the next update.
Sure you can help your friends farm and level, and there is reward in helping your friends, but nothing for you to gain at the same time.
But what if the level cap was lifted? Hear me out. The endgame would take on a different approach. All of those side quests we could never be bothered doing will all of a suddenly become more appealing. The experience we gain will be beneficial to helping us gain extra levels and become stronger. What we gain is actually really minimal, only a small bit of extra health. But to the hardcore players that may be all the incentive we need. Also payers will now be utilizing all of the game content that is available to us. The average player will now be getting more out of the game.
If you feel like this will break the game with levels going through the roof, it won't. Experience required to go up consecutive levels increases at an exponential rate. Once all quests have been exhausted the only way to gain experience will be to fight monsters. Eventual players will hit an time/effort wall when leveling up. It will take more and more time and monsters to defeat for each level to increase. The new max level although open ended will be logarithmic, averaging around a certain level with more hardcore players being a couple of levels higher. Sure you will get the odd player who is prepared to grind nonstop for a week+ just to get that extra 16-32 health. But who are we to say they don't deserve it. My inspiration for this idea came from playing Diablo 2 which had the same system. The average committed endgame player was around level 95 while the highest level I ever saw was 98
This would even make a good business model for KI. They will end up selling more gauntlets and these new one time play through dungeons, because more players will be seeking to play them because of the extra experience they can gain.
It's already at a point where leveling is unbalanced. I've been 100 for a year. Once they raise the cap, level 90 players will pass 100 long before finishing KR. People who already finished those quests have lost that XP forever. This has been a big issue since Celestia.
I know what you mean, in fact I leveled up by completing the eclipse tower. I could have been the first exalted wizard tonot have learned shadow magic! But now that I'm maxed out there is no point in finishing khrysalis for me, the only incentive is morganthe's amulet, but that would take a long time, since I'm only about a quarter of the way through the whole game.
It's already at a point where leveling is unbalanced. I've been 100 for a year. Once they raise the cap, level 90 players will pass 100 long before finishing KR. People who already finished those quests have lost that XP forever. This has been a big issue since Celestia.
Yes you are right, players will exceed level 100 before completing KR. But how would this be a problem?
You did make a good point about how it would be unfair to the players who have already completed all the quests and are at max level. Perhaps there is a way around this where KI could grant them the lost experience based on the total of all the quests they have completed.
Yes you are right, players will exceed level 100 before completing KR. But how would this be a problem?
You did make a good point about how it would be unfair to the players who have already completed all the quests and are at max level. Perhaps there is a way around this where KI could grant them the lost experience based on the total of all the quests they have completed.
KI doesn't grant people experience for doing quests while at max level, so I don't see why they would do it for this, as unlikely as it is to be implemented, as it's no different from normal level cap raises.
It's already at a point where leveling is unbalanced. I've been 100 for a year. Once they raise the cap, level 90 players will pass 100 long before finishing KR. People who already finished those quests have lost that XP forever. This has been a big issue since Celestia.
Even more-so since Wintertusk was introduced. It's a big reason why I'm not completing Khrysalis with all of my wizards.
Because of Wintertusk, I was level 50 when most of my wizards started Dragonspyre, 60 when they started Celestia, 68 or 69 when they started Zafaria, 75 or 76 when they started Avalon, 84 when they started Azteca, and 94 when they started Khrysalis. Of the wizardsI currently have in Khrysalis, 2 did complete both parts. There are 2 that just started Khrysalis Part 2, but they were level 100 before they completed Part 1, as are 2 others who aren't quite to the end of Part 1 yet but also already level 100.
The rest I'm just not putting through until I won't cap out and waste XP again. It's part of the reason I have been in no hurry to find a team to do Darkmoor neither, and why I waited on Waterworks for most of my wizards. Lots of XP lost doing those dungeons when you're already max level.
People who hit the level cap probably fall into KI's plans of only achieving a certain level prior to embarking on a new adventure in the next update. But with all of the shadow and astral spells not only being contingent on level but also completing many mainline story quests to unlock them, having a level cap almost seems redundant... or at least the current caps do.
Set the cap 10 levels further ahead so XP isn't wasted. It shouldn't have catastrophic results on the game. Instead of making the next cap 110, make it 120. It'll be hard for people to reach 120, but they may make it close to 115, depending on whether or not that capped out before the new world launches as well as XP rewards. Anybody who doesn't complete current end worlds before new ones are launched is already achieving this sort of thing anyway.
What if once you reached the level cap, some xp from sides and unfinished main line quests could be shunted into some other process, such as pet improvement, or stored against future caps?
It would encourage players who have hit the cap, to continue questing and actively participating in the spiral. Suppose you could store 10-50% of the xp value for some quests, against a future lifting of the level cap? Meaning if you, like many, reached 100 around about Crescent Beach, you could still bank up to 2 levels' worth of xp just from proceeding through to Shadow Palace.
Or let's suppose you can make an "investment portfolio" to allocate xp.
While actively leveling up, you want ALL the xp going into character progression. But when you have hit the cap, you may want to put 50% into future character progression, and 25% into say, the Pet University Tuition Fund, and the other 25% into a one-time use but rechargeable perk called Parachute Fund.
Pet University Tuition Fund: for every 10k xp you would receive from completing quests, your pet gains 10 xp, spread equally across Strength, Intellect, Agility, Will, and Power. This only applies to the pet that you have equipped at the time you activate the Fund.
Parachute Fund: For every 10k xp you would receive from completing quests, instead it places 20 health into a safe deposit box. Max 2000 health. This safe deposit box is only available to you during battle, and is strictly no-PVP. You may crack the safe to give yourself an instant health boost of up to 2000 health, including resurrecting your wiz from the dead.
Once per day, when you first log in, you will be given a menu to allocate that day's xp gains among the various options. (If you're in battle, it will not appear until you are no longer in battle) You cannot change it for another 24 hours. When you're maxed on an option, e.g. Parachute Fund, that option will be grayed out.
What if once you reached the level cap, some xp from sides and unfinished main line quests could be shunted into some other process, such as pet improvement, or stored against future caps?
It would encourage players who have hit the cap, to continue questing and actively participating in the spiral. Suppose you could store 10-50% of the xp value for some quests, against a future lifting of the level cap? Meaning if you, like many, reached 100 around about Crescent Beach, you could still bank up to 2 levels' worth of xp just from proceeding through to Shadow Palace.
Or let's suppose you can make an "investment portfolio" to allocate xp.
While actively leveling up, you want ALL the xp going into character progression. But when you have hit the cap, you may want to put 50% into future character progression, and 25% into say, the Pet University Tuition Fund, and the other 25% into a one-time use but rechargeable perk called Parachute Fund.
Pet University Tuition Fund: for every 10k xp you would receive from completing quests, your pet gains 10 xp, spread equally across Strength, Intellect, Agility, Will, and Power. This only applies to the pet that you have equipped at the time you activate the Fund.
Parachute Fund: For every 10k xp you would receive from completing quests, instead it places 20 health into a safe deposit box. Max 2000 health. This safe deposit box is only available to you during battle, and is strictly no-PVP. You may crack the safe to give yourself an instant health boost of up to 2000 health, including resurrecting your wiz from the dead.
Once per day, when you first log in, you will be given a menu to allocate that day's xp gains among the various options. (If you're in battle, it will not appear until you are no longer in battle) You cannot change it for another 24 hours. When you're maxed on an option, e.g. Parachute Fund, that option will be grayed out.
This idea brings to mind another reference to Diablo 2. The skill tree system used in that game allowed a similar distribution of points depending on the direction you opted to take your avatar. This is not quite as elaborate, and rightly so, but it still offers some viable options. I would suggest that banked XP might also be funneled to some other "accounts" in the "investment portfolio" mechanic. For a long time I've been of the opinion that some of the games other activities should contribute to the leveling-up process. Some of these being crafting, gardening and fishing. I realize that you do gain XP in these skills as you perform them but that XP goes solely to the advancement of that discipline, not into leveling as a whole. Even if a small percentage of XP were to go towards leveling-up it would add just a tad more incentive. After all, you're drawing from the energy pool to participate in these activities so you should get a small XP payback as well. I also like your idea of a "Parachute" fund. To expand on that idea perhaps instead of strictly a health cache, it could maybe go to a random heal spell card or a boost to 100% accuracy for one spell. This would eliminate the straight bail-out of a health shot but would still give you an opportunity to even the odds in a critical situation.
But now that I'm maxed out there is no point in finishing khrysalis for me, the only incentive is morganthe's amulet, but that would take a long time, since I'm only about a quarter of the way through the whole game. 
