IDEAS FOR RYZOM

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.)