What is the level cap here?

[jerejo76]

Greetings. I am new here and was curious what the level cap was. I was ingame and saw that the highest player was lvl 14. Is this it? Am I to spend weeks or months of playing just to attain lvl 14? If this is the case, then why does everyone play here so much? I was disappionted with the lvl 20 cap on nwn2. Even BG2 had a cap of 40. Please explain why so many people are happy with this. Any response would be most welcome.

[jaitee]

14 is highest lvl now, 20 at max i think, yes it is low, but i dunno what turbine has to come next so who knows

most of the game is revolved around different types/kind of builds and it is fun, and races/classes, is why people keep playing

the low lvl cap of the game is kind of depressing, but it depends on the player, once you get to lvl 20, i wouldnt know what to do

[The_Cataclysm]

There is still the epic levels after 20 which I would assume they will use as well.

[Aranticus]

did you come from WoW where the cap is 70? if yes then 14 is low compared to 70. however, if you look at where ddo started (the pen n paper version), at L9, players are already lords or master magicans. xp is hard to attain, an average game would require about a year or so for you to hit L10. by comparison with the pnp roots, L14 is considered high, that would take you roughly 1 week of serious gaming to do. elminister (a high lvl npc wiz in the pnp game) took several hundred years (in game time) to achieve his 20+ lvl (i think was 26). thus if we are looking at numbers for validation, then compare it to pnp rather than other online games. :)

[Tenkari_Rozahas]

level 20 is max for "non-epic" campaigns if you ever played DnD, as anything over level 20 makes yoru characters almost god like..... dont forget DDO also has the enhancment system where you get 1 AP for each rank, you get 4 AP per level, so that equates to 56 AP's to spend to enhance your character, so basically, you get 14 levels and 56 sub-levels.

[sigtrent]

Level 20 is really for my money the maximum level in D&D. Levels above that are classed as epic and are not traditionaly part of the basic game rules.

Levels in D&D are a lot more than levels in other games. Here they do have ranks, aka mini levels between 1-14 where you get points to spend so if you call those levels we have 70 of them.

I wish we had 1-20 but we'd need a ton more quests (which would be nice but what can you do). Anyhow if you like it thats cool, if not.. well there is always WOW or Guild wars or any number of games.

[Cowdenicus]

14 is the level cap, but as a player of EQ2, CoV and WoW, I can tell you this game has a depth (in character building and creation) that cannot be touched by any main stream game on the market.

Content on the other hand leaves a bit to be desired.

All in all, this game gets a B from me.

[jerejo76]

I've never played wow or eq. I grew up with Diablo and the BG series. Nwn drew my attenion for some years. I just cancelled my lotro account. Lotro is boring to me. I did not like the idea of my lvl 50 Loremaster being a carbon copy of the other lvl 50 loremasters out there. We would all have the same spells, abilities and pets. The only difference I could hope for would be what crafting abilities I have. No thanx. I like dnd better. I come from rock-solid pnp crews. I could probably quote any obscure combat rule or feat bonus you could throw at me. My old DM would say I'm a pain in his arse. But I was just making sure he knew the rules...lol. Anyways, I will give this game a shot. Thanks to all who posted.

[blakbyrd]

As mentioned, 14 current cap, estimated 20 max cap (unless they enter into epic levels). Average is about 6 months or so per 2 level cap increase, so the cap increase to 16 is due this fall sometime (not this coming module, but probably the one after hopefully).

On a side note about PnP vs DDO. Leveling here doesn't take too long, and rushing yourself to cap out can hurt long term fun, so enjoy your way to that point. As for PnP, I have only had 1 character reach level 20, and it took over 8 years to do. Closest to that was a 14 which took about 5 years of PnP sessions (usually 1 long session a week). However the introduction of a computerized DM along with visual representations (rather then verbally described) greatly reduces the amount of time necessary to progress.

When the cap was 10, my slowest capped player took about 6 months. My fastest capped at 10 took 5 days. Its a combination of play style, experience and time available. You can make it last if you want, or you can zerg level if you want. In comparison, with pretty hard playing, it took me a little over a year in WoW to cap out with one character there. However if you took out all the necessary travel time in WoW, that time would have been considerably less (as well as all the time I spent crafting). All in all, it is your own play style which will determine the longterm playability of any MMO, don't jusge on levels alone.

What really opens up DDO from alot of other games is not the lack of levels, its the ability to create all sorts of different characters and not be left to specific build styles, so the game has alot of options if you look for them. If you just look at the surface it may seem quite shallow, but it really isnt, if you are into your character and not just into leveling.

[Cowdenicus]

To add to this, you may want to look in the class forums for hints tips and tricks in regards to building a character, because not everything has translated from P&P to DDO well, like cleric domains and such (my pet peeve issue personally)

There can be alot of good information found in those forums, and if you want build advice, just post a question. Trust me you will get all the advice you could want (and more) and a possible discussion on some of the nuance....

[Melthus]

I have to ask, what difference does it make? Would it really be any different if they said 70 levels, and called each new rank within a level a level? Split up the HP and SP gains so you get one fifth of them each rank.

When you finished, you would have a level 70 character, that was exactly as powerful, relative to the monsters you are fighting, as the level 14s are now.

Bottom line: there is a progression path, and you gain power as you follow it. It would not change how I feel about my character, if they called him a level 50 (instead of 10), added an extra 0 to his hp and sp, and an extra 0 to his damage, while adjusting the mobs so it takes the same time to beat them.

[Aranticus]

I have to ask, what difference does it make? Would it really be any different if they said 70 levels, and called each new rank within a level a level? Split up the HP and SP gains so you get one fifth of them each rank.

When you finished, you would have a level 70 character, that was exactly as powerful, relative to the monsters you are fighting, as the level 14s are now.

Bottom line: there is a progression path, and you gain power as you follow it. It would not change how I feel about my character, if they called him a level 50 (instead of 10), added an extra 0 to his hp and sp, and an extra 0 to his damage, while adjusting the mobs so it takes the same time to beat them.

no difference to the mature players but younger, less matured players do not associate it the way most of us do. they base strength, power and ability by raw numbers alone. when i was playing baulders gate, my friend was playing diablo. when asked whats my ac n when he heard that its -8 (yes AD&D2 ac), he laughed n asked me why such a low ac? he associated his game to mine and that his 300+ armor is superior to a -8 in my game. little did he realise that ac of -12 to -15 is god-like n that -10 is almost non-existent in most senarios

[blakbyrd]

Well, as the discussion has seemed to wander a bit, I think there is a very good reason why we see DDO as it is and not following the typical style creations of other MMOs (at least in the sense of level progression). As mentioned, the level progression could work either way, as everything else would simply be scaled to make it basically as it is now anyhow.

However, DDO remains with one major benefit over all other MMOs of this genre. That being that all other similar MMOs are designed around the system D&D created, yet DDO is the only one able to officially build with D&D rules. As such I think it is a good thing that they at least stuck with the rules and maintained the 20 level system and d20 rules. That has been the heart of D&D forever and has made it what it is. Sure it has it's flaws in it's design but it was designed not to be strickly followed but as guidelines to allow the DMs to alter it as was necessary, as long as the few core basics remained, everythine else became optional. It didn't become the grandfather of RPGs simply by chance.

On a side note, it would have basically been impossible for Turbine to have released DDO with a 50 or 70 level cap. If they did, upon release, they would have only really had 1-2 quests available per level and that would have looked horrible, and made the world seem even smaller. Aside from what Turbine did to our original dragon (Velah), the one thing that has really bugged me since day one was the fact that they had such an enormous world to work from, yet they prefered to design DDO in such a tiny bubble of that world. For an MMO, I cannot think of any other MMO that has such an abyssmally small sized world to exist in. It's almost like the Big Brother of the MMO world, finding yourself walled in all over the place, in a world or compaign setting that is massive. They are called "worlds" for a reason and campaign settings typically encompass a good size of the world (but rarely all), however with DDO that comes down to being limited to one city, and a city that seems more like a township. I dont like comparing DDO to WoW, as the games are completely different, but in size, the difference in astronimical. Just the main Horde side city, Orgrimmar is almost the Stormreach itself which is practically our entire world. Origrimmar is simply one of many cities just on one side of the WoW world. World size is important, although traveling between such cities is optional and not required in MMOs (some would like it some wouldn't). I just feel caged in with DDO whereas in almost all other MMOs a world seems more like a world, not a small location.

Oh well, sorry to stray further off track,

[blakbyrd]

Well, as the discussion has seemed to wander a bit, I think there is a very good reason why we see DDO as it is and not following the typical style creations of other MMOs (at least in the sense of level progression). As mentioned, the level progression could work either way, as everything else would simply be scaled to make it basically as it is now anyhow.

However, DDO remains with one major benefit over all other MMOs of this genre. That being that all other similar MMOs are designed around the system D&D created, yet DDO is the only one able to officially build with D&D rules. As such I think it is a good thing that they at least stuck with the rules and maintained the 20 level system and d20 rules. That has been the heart of D&D forever and has made it what it is. Sure it has it's flaws in it's design but it was designed not to be strickly followed but as guidelines to allow the DMs to alter it as was necessary, as long as the few core basics remained, everythine else became optional. It didn't become the grandfather of RPGs simply by chance.

On a side note, it would have basically been impossible for Turbine to have released DDO with a 50 or 70 level cap. If they did, upon release, they would have only really had 1-2 quests available per level and that would have looked horrible, and made the world seem even smaller. Aside from what Turbine did to our original dragon (Velah), the one thing that has really bugged me since day one was the fact that they had such an enormous world to work from, yet they prefered to design DDO in such a tiny bubble of that world. For an MMO, I cannot think of any other MMO that has such an abyssmally small sized world to exist in. It's almost like the Big Brother of the MMO world, finding yourself walled in all over the place, in a world or compaign setting that is massive. They are called "worlds" for a reason and campaign settings typically encompass a good size of the world (but rarely all), however with DDO that comes down to being limited to one city, and a city that seems more like a township. I dont like comparing DDO to WoW, as the games are completely different, but in size, the difference in astronimical. Just the main Horde side city, Orgrimmar is almost the Stormreach itself which is practically our entire world. Origrimmar is simply one of many cities just on one side of the WoW world. World size is important, although traveling between such cities is optional and not required in MMOs (some would like it some wouldn't). I just feel caged in with DDO whereas in almost all other MMOs a world seems more like a world, not a small location.

Oh well, sorry to stray further off track,