IDEAS FOR RYZOM

There very well could be some truth to the aversion of grinding 50 more levels, particularly once you've had to grind through the last 20 or so. When you get to that point, you'll understand better =) But grinding is just one aspect of MMO life, and I think it's one of the lamest methods used to ensure players keep playing.

Another purpose for level caps is to ensure that newer players can reach semi-equal footing to older players. There are games that do not have a "cap", and veteran players are guaranteed to decimate any newer player no matter how well that player is able to play the character.

Raising the level cap also increases the barrier-to-entry for newer players. In most MMOs, you accept that as a new player, or player still leveling, that you are weaker than others who have been there longer. You also know that with enough time and/or effort, you can reach that peak and be able to compete with those veterans. The longer it takes to equalize your skills with the old-timers, the more likely it is for someone to begin to lose interest. Even WoW faces that obstacle and has had public discussions about continually raising the level cap.


I don't think Ryzom needs to raise the level cap. It doesn't serve any useful purpose to how the game is structured, and it would require a lot of effort that could, instead, be spent adding other features to the game. Raising the level cap is more than just changing a couple of maximum values in the code, whipping up some new grind fodder in a new randomly-generated zone, and boom you're done.

I would rather the Devs spend valuable development time on adding more things for us to do at the current max level, and even lower levels, instead of spending the time on raising the cap and then re-balancing the game around the increased level ... and STILL not have anything to do at max level.

One question and one suggestion:
If instead the level cap just gets raised infinite whithout creating new environments/mobs with higher then current level so that some "mad" people could still grind to achieve higher levels, would that be an option? The 250+ levels only provide better percentages in 250er skills and some new titles (and maybe only a handful of new (and expensive) skills). I still think that some people would still think it's great. As with every level increase the XP goes down and to level up harder there will be a kind of natural end to it at some stage.

Do you still think it would require great re-balancing of the game?

If you add new abilities, then it would definitely require careful analysis. Even if you just increase the stats, it would need some extra attention to make sure it doesn't break anything else.

If nothing is added except the level increase, then it probably wouldn't matter; it would just be a superficial number. However, I do think it would be amusing to be plodding with a small-ish group and get 6 exp per plod =)

People would be hunting lvl 270 bosses just for the sake of XP and throwing the supremes on the market just because they have more than they can deal with ?

Raising lvl caps is also far different then a game with 1 overall lvl. So in WoW they raise it to 100 and you need 15 lvls to again max your toon. On Ryzom you want to add 50 lvls to a game with 63 skills. That's a lot of grinding even for those who love to grind-Kilgoretrout

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This is a hard one on one side rising lvl cap could bring old players back in the short run and it would mean that an old guild can't just return and take over server since they would have to grind first to be on same lvl as others. On the other side ppl thinking of returning in 6 months might not feel like it because they would have to grind old skills again.

I'm against rising lvl cap, but I think rising stanza lvl might be cool.
For example, if you are lvl 250 in every jewel skills, you can buy a new stanza to craft lvl 260 jewels.

Same thing with harvesting, if you mastered the five lands you get a Ql 260 digging stanza that you can use on higher quality nodes in the kitin lair or in a new area...

We can also imagine lvl 270 stanza to meet the highest bosses drops.
Potions would improve the succes rate.

I'm not opposed to raising the level cap, but only if it's accompanied by new content to exploit those skills.
Grinding another 50 levels on q250 mobs and mats would be way too painful, we'd need q300 and areas :)

And they'd need to be different enough from the current areas that it remains interesting.
Whether new zones in the current regions, or something completely different, both can work. But something does need to be done.
We see too many high level players spending most of their days hanging around town, chatting, being bored (and that includes me at times).
New things to do, new sights to see, would work to keep them around.
The main thing of course where Ryzom is different from the composition is that there is not one level to increase when the cap goes up, but 60+, which no doubt goes a long way to explaining why people are opposed to the idea (ask in other mmos, and people clamor for level cap increases, only to then rush in 2-3 days through the new content and scream that it wasn't enough, quite the opposite).

So a tradeoff needs to be found between keeping people from getting bored because there's nothing new for them once they reach the cap, and them getting frustrated with mindless grinding towards that cap (whatever it is).
This can mean either a higher cap with new things to do to get there, or more new things to do at the current cap.
A hybrid might be new skills unlocked only once the current cap is reached, and new areas to employ those skills in (and train them to their cap).
What those skills would be I can't tell, the new areas might include the upper roots, new zones added to the current ones, deep roots, or completely new regions (with maybe major events to unlock them for exploration).

Perhaps we all have frogotten that miniscule 1 pixel jump in our progress bar while doing level 249-250 ..... I can't imagine the pace at 299-300 .... and let's not forget, how many peeps are doing those 240+ level w/o cats. I'm doing MA in the 240's and its a gdrag bringing up the 4 trees (and yes, I do still use cats for crafting).

What would be nice is what some have touched on. Give peeps a reason to bring up the rest of the trees. Master all 4 above ground lands for harvest and you can "improve" 250 dig mats to 260 dig mats.....the "improve feature" already exists fro occupations so most of the programming in place.

Master HA's 1st tree and get the 85% success rate. Master 2nd and increase another 3% ...... Masters 3rd and another 3%......Master all and get the ability to do 270 but, cuz toom still 250, your success rate at the 20 point OC will drop down to 80 again ... but w/ the 14% scrolls, the 84% would just about work out. Same for mastering all 2h wep trees, 1h wep trees, jools, etc

As far as the fighting skills, again, mastering all branches of a tree should give a bonus but not change the toon level.....say extra HP and Stam boost for melee weaps (but only when using completely mastered trees .... i.e. all 2h weaps, all 1h weaps, all 4 magic trees, all 2h ranged, all 1h ranged.)