Diablo III Forum Activity, Level Cap Discussion

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Written by BuckGB on April 20th, 2011

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Good discussion! It's an old topic I know but there's a lot of good points and counter-points being brought up.

So just to reiterate some things and maybe draw it back to more specific bullet points of why a lower level cap is (we believe) better for the game:

'¢ We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. You can think of the amount of power a character gains through leveling as a bucket of orange soda, and each level as a glass. We have to have an end-point and so we can only scale player power to that point. By having fewer glasses they can be filled more, and each one has more delicious thirst-quenching orange soda. Spread that same bucket out over 99 or 200 glasses, and each level is less satisfying (if not downright unnoticeable).

'¢ We want level benefits to be as clear as possible. Some people have suggested "Well, let us hit level 60, but then keep giving us points after that." which isn't a solution, it's the same problem except worse because there's no actual tracking mechanism built in (ie levels). We also want to avoid providing level benefits at irregular intervals (although this may be unavoidable for trait points), as some people suggest "Let us level to 99 and just give us the rewards every few levels". This goes back to the first point: We want each level to feel like a significant boost in power. Trait points may not come every level, but the sum of the other increases from leveling, we feel, are still very significant and maintain our intent.

'¢ Because of the extreme leveling curve in Diablo II, balance really couldn't be adjusted around level 99 characters. This meant that the last 15 or so levels were not just minimal increases in power, but in most cases provided absolutely nothing to a characters ability to effectively complete Hell difficulty and get items, which did significantly improve their character. Instead, leveling to 99 became a status symbol more than anything.

'¢ We can have long term status symbols people can go for that are extremely visual, show to others the effort you've put in, but not attach that to something like a character level. Along with artisans, achievements, gems, runestones, and all the other various character customization progressions, we still have some surprises left in store on this front.

'¢ Balance isn't a main point for a tighter level system, but it is one side benefit. With the sum changes and improvements to all of the core designs, we believe that we can have a more reasonably challenging game throughout (as we can fairly clearly know how strong someone should be at any point in time) without attempting to create "challenge" through cheesy tactics.

'¢ The game paces out progression very well through all of the various customization systems, which are far more interesting and important to an end-game character, as opposed to chasing a number.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a good point or two. The real bottom line is that we understand people like having those long term goals, and those feel good to chase and eventually achieve, but we do not feel one needs to be character level, and in fact making character levels a long term goal brings a great many negative effects with them (keeping in mind our goals for how important each level should feel). We do not doubt that people will feel good about chasing the long term goals of building the perfect character, getting a playtime intensive achievement, leveling up an artisan to max, or any of the other many individual long term progression systems the game offers.

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Is it because obviously people wouldn't buy an expansion unless it had more levels? That's obviously not true because LoD sold many copies based on an additional act, new classes, new items, runewords, jewels, charms, cubing, 800x600 resolution, etc. etc. So looking at what expansions provide, how is it logical to say that we'd obviously make level 60 the cap so we could finally have some way to sell these pesky expansion things?

If you want to draw the WoW comparison, Cataclysm only offers an additional 5 levels, as opposed to the previous expansions' 10 levels each, and it was still the fasting selling PC game in history, topping the previous title holder, Wrath of the Lich King. And you could make the argument "Well there are a lot of things that go into that beyond just some more levels." And I would say "Exactly."

If we felt 99 was the best level cap to have in Diablo III, that's what we'd be doing. We work extremely hard to design, produce, test, and support finely polished games with a strong focus on fun, and that is the obvious reason these design decisions are made.

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Let me follow that up with a disclaimer - We aren't thinking about an expansion at all yet, but as levels are intended to pace content (we expect you to hit the last level around when you kill the last boss on Hell) it's not unreasonable to assume that additional levels would be present in an expansion, assuming it did offer additional content we'd want more levels to keep pace with.

I don't refute the logic that an expansion could bring more levels, but I fully refute any idea that we're making design decisions that directly impact the core of the player progression system so we can have a bullet point on the back of a box.

You've actually seen some of the first three Acts already, and we probably won't be revealing too much more than what we've already shown. We really want to try to keep as much a surprise for you when you play through the game the first time as possible. We will be announcing all of the game systems though before beta, so there are a few things left as far as reveals go. While beta will obviously be a lot of fun, should you get the chance to get in and help test, it'll only be a small part of the whole game. Some people want to know everything, but we're really trying to preserve the surprise and wonderment (that we hope will come with exploring Diablo III) as much as possible.

For most people there are two forms of "rushing". One is essentially playing on bugs to skip content that isn't intended to be skip-able. The other is either using your previously acquired wealth to twink a new character, and/or have a high level character help run you through the content.

Rushing through use of unintended mechanics or bugs to skip content is not something we'll support, of course, and ideally we'll fix any such issues should they crop up.

Outfitting a new character with better items and having a friend with a high level character rush you through content, we're totally fine with. While, yes, we could be sentimental and hope that you're really interesting in experiencing the content at the pace and balance we worked hard to achieve, having a friend rush you through content is a positive social experience. Having them help you hit a level where you're both able to tackle content that's relevant creates a positive social experience. Regardless of the intended pace, it's co-operative play, and that's not bad.

We'll probably be dropping gems a couple levels further than the 5th (as previously stated), which should help. We also want to make sure it doesn't become a pain to have a ton of gems sitting around waiting for another one to upgrade, so there may be some crafting solutions that help with that. But more importantly we expect a more robust trading system will make it much more feasible to sell off a ton of gems, earn that wealth, and then buy back into gems later when you want - and on the buyer side of that, if you have some gems and just need one more to upgrade, it will be quick and easy to go get one for a reasonable price.

Some can and will drop, but it won't be in quantities or types sufficient to craft all items. Meaning you will need to salvage items you don't want to be able to make the ones you do. We want that to be a decision, to choose to break an item down to crafting components, and not allow making sweet loots just through a slow collection of reagents over time.

Just for those who aren't aware, Diablo II animations were rendered at 25 frames per second. This is important because it meant that events could only occur on those 25 points in every second. When you start getting into the nitty gritty of faster attack and cast rates, 25 ticks per second to shave off time for actions to occur isn't nearly granular enough to account for a direct comparison between point increases and an actual result of removing a full frame. These are called break points. Essentially your attack rate increase points don't mean anything until you get enough to hit the next break point and remove an animation frame, which would actually result in a real effect on your actions.

I'll make two statements on break points:

'¢ Break points were an effect of the Diablo II engine, not a gameplay mechanic specifically designed into the game.

'¢ Even modern games run at specific tick rates, and Diablo III is no different. I'll only say it's more than 25.

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