No level cap increase for Feywild as per Cordovan's weekly stream

[ThomasHunter]

I’m kind of bummed. Figured there would be lots of new systems to explore and such. I also thought some of the purchases would be tied to “new”. Will there be a glut of level 29 gear? Will this exasperate the issue of farming potentially useless gear?

Note that I’m fully in still, just a bit bummed. Hopefully they come up with some new goodies for 29-30 still.

[rabidfox]

For those who didn't watch the live stream; in today's Cordovan weekly live stream, he announced that they've decided to not do a level cap increase with the Feywild expansion. He said they may do it down the line, but for now no level cap increase will be occurring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jW-mJwYlzo

[SirValentine]

Nice! We've got 13 Legendary Raids right now, 3 more coming in next update, and probably at least 1 in the expansion itself? Kudos for expanding the endgame instead of destroying it. Hopefully have learned from the mistake of Underdark, where they destroyed the endgame with the level cap increase that made all raids obsolete, and took like 7-8 years to finally stabilize and rebuild.

I wasn't planning to stick around for another post-Underdark-style dark age, but I guess I need to pay more attention to what's coming then.

[Yamani]

Nice! We've got 13 Legendary Raids right now, 3 more coming in next update, and probably at least 1 in the expansion itself? Kudos for expanding the endgame instead of destroying it. Hopefully have learned from the mistake of Underdark, where they destroyed the endgame with the level cap increase that made all raids obsolete, and took like 7-8 years to finally stabilize and rebuild.

I wasn't planning to stick around for another post-Underdark-style dark age, but I guess I need to pay more attention to what's coming then.

Expanding the end game? Just more powerful gear for level 29 and making Ravenloft/Sharn nothing but reaper xp.

[HungarianRhapsody]

That is wonderful news. Thank you!

[Fivetigers33]

The level cap increase is still coming, just not with Feywild.

[Codect]

That is a shame. Understandable though. There are arguments for and against increasing the cap and I believe more people (forumites at least) appear against it.

I'm mostly disappointed that it means we'll end up with **another** set of end game gear which makes most previous items redundant. I'd prefer the level cap increase along with appropriately levelled and powered gear so that current end game gear would at least be useful for levelling 29-32 or whatever. Ah well, hopefully the content itself is good fun. If it is anything like I imagine after playing the Housekeeping quest, it will be a great expansion.

[SirValentine]

Expanding the end game? Just more powerful gear for level 29 and making Ravenloft/Sharn nothing but reaper xp.

As opposed to how you imagine it would have played out with a level cap increase?

DDO still has existing and likely future new problems. I don't claim everything about Feywild will automatically be perfect just because it won't have a level cap increase. But it would certainly be far worse with a level cap increase.

The level cap increase is still coming, just not with Feywild.

I'll quit that game when I come to it. If they've put it aside for now, that's good enough for now. Hopefully they never pick it back up.

[TitusOvid]

I guess it means lvl incease got postponed. I vote for no increase at all but I am happy for every bit of time.
Thanks for the info. I hope there will be some more official information on the forum about that.

Cheers,
Titus.

[ggmarquez]

The level cap increase is still coming, just not with Feywild.

thank you. i was getting worried there. been looking forward to a cap increase for a while now. it's overdue imho.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Expanding the end game? Just more powerful gear for level 29 and making Ravenloft/Sharn nothing but reaper xp.

More content at end game of 30 is way better than a couple of end game raids with the current end game becoming just "leveling" content like what happened when MotU was released.

More stuff at current cap = good.

Current stuff being massively devalued because it isn't relevant at cap anymore (like the old S/S/S Epic items) = not good.

[Yamani]

More content at end game of 30 is way better than a couple of end game raids with the current end game becoming just "leveling" content like what happened when MotU was released.

More stuff at current cap = good.

Current stuff being massively devalued because it isn't relevant at cap anymore (like the old S/S/S Epic items) = not good.

Thats the problem its devaluing ravenloft to ziltch, sharn to just rxp farm's, gear will be invalidated entirely unlike what it would have been with a level cap increase as you would still need the gear to level in probably much harder content till you get to the level of the new gear.

You honestly think they'll release an expansion with weaker or similar gear power as a previous expansion? Ravenloft-> Sharn is a perfect example of that not going to happen. Least with the S/S/S system they still have gems like eSoS with how powerful melee is atm.

[Gniewomir]

For me - best news this years. To be honest i prefer no feywild rather than feywild + cap increase. :P

[SirValentine]

You honestly think they'll release an expansion with weaker or similar gear power as a previous expansion?

Weaker would be dumb, but, while I don't expect it, it is at least theoretically possible that they would release gear of similar power level.

Making a more complicated and interesting gearing puzzle, instead of just invalidating previous gear en masse, would be a good move.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Thats the problem its devaluing ravenloft to ziltch, sharn to just rxp farm's, gear will be invalidated entirely unlike what it would have been with a level cap increase as you would still need the gear to level in probably much harder content till you get to the level of the new gear.

You honestly think they'll release an expansion with weaker or similar gear power as a previous expansion? Ravenloft-> Sharn is a perfect example of that not going to happen. Least with the S/S/S system they still have gems like eSoS with how powerful melee is atm.

There is 1 item from MotU era that is still relevant. eSoS.

One item. Just one.

Ravenloft and Sharn are already just for RXP because you're not sitting at cap for Epic XP certainly. Even if the Feywild gear is slightly better, you'll still have builds that like some of the current gear IF the cap stays where it is. There are still builds that use Ravenloft sets even though Sharn is better for most builds.

[rabidfox]

Here's the official post from Cordovan; since it's on the Lamannia forums it doesn't show up on the normal dev tracker so people might miss it.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...e4#post6360504

[Zeleron]

There is 1 item from MotU era that is still relevant. eSoS.

One item. Just one.

Ravenloft and Sharn are already just for RXP because you're not sitting at cap for Epic XP certainly. Even if the Feywild gear is slightly better, you'll still have builds that like some of the current gear IF the cap stays where it is. There are still builds that use Ravenloft sets even though Sharn is better for most builds.

Don't forget eRoss, eStorm, if you're including Motu then stuff like celestia, pinion, sireth.

[karatemack]

Weaker would be dumb, but, while I don't expect it, it is at least theoretically possible that they would release gear of similar power level.

Making a more complicated and interesting gearing puzzle, instead of just invalidating previous gear en masse, would be a good move.

Absolutely this!

Maybe we'll get "Major Artifacts", new filigree sets, different types of damage to mitigate, different types of bonuses ("Fey bonus"?).

I am really excited for more outward expansion and less upward. Thank you to SSG for listening to the players!!!

[Stravix]

Don't forget eRoss, eStorm, if you're including Motu then stuff like celestia, pinion, sireth.

None of those are used as anything but leveling items...

[droid327]

Yeah I'm hoping the delay gives us enough time to convince the devs to abandon the idea of level cap increase altogether. For both gameplay reasons and D&D lore, L30 should always remain the max numeric level you can achieve.

Endgame progression should be horizontal, not vertical. Or quasi-vertical, like Paragon levels in D3. But keeping the level cap at 30 keeps our current investment in gear protected, while still letting us chase new L30 gear to supplement it. Things like more L30 sets would give us way more flexibility with gearing...just adding L32 sets only serves to create another tier of gear Tetris and lock us into certain setups. Leave level-ups alone and just let us chase whatever new progression system they implement in Feywild.

The issue with horizontal progression up to now is they're too scared to make it an actual chase system the same way that TR or ETR is. Destinies are "done" after a handful of ETRs now that you dont lose actual Destiny XP on ETR. Sentience progression was never that slow with how much SXP you get from L29-30 items, and then WPM made it even cheaper with 1000 XP stones too, and then Minor Artifacts are basically 3 extra free fil slots. Reaper XP got cheapened with all their balance changes making R1 the default difficulty for vets.

I'd love to see the cap stay at 30 and then implement a new parallel progression system they could focus on in Feywild...maybe a perma-hireling you could TR and level up and gear out over time...maybe a TR-style "level and reset" system for incremental weapon improvement...maybe just a straight Paragon system with infinite levels giving small incremental bonuses, with XP costs increasing exponentially....but not something that most everyone will just be "done" with before the next content pack comes out.