Increasing the level cap but reducing available experience

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Lapa

I don't now get the point of this. Why would somebody want to increase the level cap when there would be less xp-points in a game?

O_Bruce

And the reason behind this is,,,?

Wiggles

I say leave it the way it is. While I know plenty of people that hit the xp cap, I myself never do. Besides, with BG2:EE in the works your character will be like level 10 at the start of SoA. A lot more work to be done to balance BG2:EE. Meh, not worth it.

HaHaCharade

They made the game way easier by adding extra kits, classes, races, magic items, etc -- and it was already easy. If they raised the level cap too... I mean... really? The game was soloable before the EE. How about adding DLC of new areas that are more difficult? Then maybe I can see raising the level cap a small margin.

Erg

I'm not sure I understand your proposal, but if your are talking about how to make level progression slower, that can be achieved in two ways:

1) reducing the XP gained
2) increasing by the same amount in percentage (lets say by 10%) both the XP required to level up and the level cap

#1 is difficult to implement as you will have to change lots of scripts and dialogues
#2 is so easy to do that even I could do it. You just have to edit XPLEVEL.2DA (XP progression table), XPCAP.2DA (XP cap), STARTARE.2DA (XP cap for main campaign), STARTBP.2DA (XP cap for Black Pits).

TJ_Hooker

Lapa said:

I don't now get the point of this. Why would somebody want to increase the level cap when there would be less xp-points in a game?

As it is now, there is significantly more xp available in the game than is needed to get even a full party to the XP cap. As long as you only decreased the xp gains by a modest amount, you'd still be able to hit the current xp cap (and maybe even a higher one) if you do a thorough playthrough.

ZelgadisGW said:

And the reason behind this is,,,?

I don't want to put words in the OP's mouth, but here's my interpretation:

Gaining xp and levelling up is a fairly important aspect of BG, or any other RPG, for me. It's actually kind of disappointing to reach the level cap (potentially a while before you beat the game) and realize that's as powerful as your character is going to get. In the past it's even caused to me to lose interest and not bother finishing my playthrough.

At the same time, simply raising or removing the current xp cap would make the game too easy, as it isn't balanced for higher level characters (many find it too easy as it is). So the OP's suggestion would mean that mean that you would still be gaining xp and levelling up for a longer portion of the game, but you wouldn't necessarily end up significantly more powerful than you would with the current system.

FinneousPJ

Don't see the point.

atcDave

I actually don't have strong feelings on this, it's easy enough to remove the XP cap. But I did notice in the initial release of the game, when the spawn points were messed up (not enough monsters), it created some interesting balance issues that I mostly enjoyed. That is, you often entered the set fights a little lower level than I was used to. Not in a huge way, just enough that one or two of your characters might be a level lower than I was used to. And I liked it. It made those fights just a little tougher sometimes; AND, it made them more important. The boss fights are always the source of the most experience anyway, but that became even more pronounced when there was less available from random encounters.
Now I actually wouldn't want to see the balance of the core game tampered with. But it might be really interesting if instead of JUST a difficulty slider, there was also a slider for the number of random encounters. I know I would enjoy playing different run throughs with different quantity and quality of monster populations.

The XP cap issue is a little different. I don't want to be 15th level in BG, that would totally break the game. But I've played a few times without a cap at all, and with a full party, and no grinding, the game has around 200K experience for each character. I think it's a little silly that the XP cap blocks us from those last 40K experience. That will not break the game or greatly upset balance in any way. So I wish the game would just let us keep earning it!

Erg

TJ_Hooker said:

So the OP's suggestion would mean that mean that you would still be gaining xp and levelling up for a longer portion of the game, but you wouldn't necessarily end up significantly more powerful than you would with the current system.

That makes sense.

As example suppose we raise the XP cap in the main campaign from 161000 to 177100 (i.e. a 10% increase), but we also similarly raise the XP required to level up, so that for instance a Thief would require 176000 XP to reach level 10 instead of 160000 (again a 10% increase).

By the end of the game a pure thief will still reach level 10, it would just take him a little longer to reach max level.

Kirkor

Well, if you increase level cap now, you will faceroll the rest of the game...

Nifft

Lapa said:

I don't now get the point of this. Why would somebody want to increase the level cap when there would be less xp-points in a game?

ZelgadisGW said:

And the reason behind this is,,,?

These.

If there's some point to doing this, it's not obvious to me either.

Bugrat

It would be cool to keep the cap but scale down all XP rewards so that it just takes a bit longer to get there. If the devs balance the XP cap toward being reached after scouring every area and killing every badguy then I would be happy. I guess this is the same thing as what @Erg is saying, but his way sounds like it would be easier to implement.

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atcDave

Bhaaldog said:

atcDave said:

I actually don't have strong feelings on this, it's easy enough to remove the XP cap. But I did notice in the initial release of the game, when the spawn points were messed up (not enough monsters), it created some interesting balance issues that I mostly enjoyed. That is, you often entered the set fights a little lower level than I was used to. Not in a huge way, just enough that one or two of your characters might be a level lower than I was used to. And I liked it. It made those fights just a little tougher sometimes; AND, it made them more important. The boss fights are always the source of the most experience anyway, but that became even more pronounced when there was less available from random encounters.
Now I actually wouldn't want to see the balance of the core game tampered with. But it might be really interesting if instead of JUST a difficulty slider, there was also a slider for the number of random encounters. I know I would enjoy playing different run throughs with different quantity and quality of monster populations.

The XP cap issue is a little different. I don't want to be 15th level in BG, that would totally break the game. But I've played a few times without a cap at all, and with a full party, and no grinding, the game has around 200K experience for each character. I think it's a little silly that the XP cap blocks us from those last 40K experience. That will not break the game or greatly upset balance in any way. So I wish the game would just let us keep earning it!

Actually @atcDave some of your comments from other threads made me think about this poll as a means of allowing continued character growth but also as a method to make the game more challenging. It is interesting to see some of the responses so far.

Thanks for thinking of me (!). I definitely like seeing things like growth and difficulty change in different playthroughs. Admittedly, some of that has to do with over twenty completions of the game (and probably 100 starts) and craving a little more variety. I don't like the idea of tampering with the core rules (like xp value per kill) at all. But loosing an artificial restriction like an XP cap, and adding a slider for number and difficulty of encounters (like Civilization) seems very appealing to me. If monsters are more numerous and tougher you will enter the boss encounters a little tougher and better prepared, while if random encounters were less frequent you could enter the end game with some characters lower level than we're used to. That sounds like fun variety to me.
And just to be clear, by keeping base experience per kill the same (and removing the cap), the difference in the end game SHOULD NOT be huge. Maybe a +/- 1 to average party level. Just enough to make things a little different without totally breaking anything.

Pecca

I play without level cap for many years and I don't usually finish the game much more powerful than I would otherwise. I always thought it was there because of BG2, not because balance issues. Anyway the cap was always quite annoying and little immersion breaking and the day I discovered I can remove it was a very happy day:)

Lemernis

Mmmm, I'd say leave as is. Players can easily remove the cap if they like. (Though it'd be nice to see a button for that integrated into the UI.)

Once SCS:EE gets released I'll be playing with improved enemy AI so I plan on removing the cap, as I think removal of the cap won't then be unbalancing.

OzzyBotkins

One of the things I loved about BG1
was that your CHARNAME progress up the level ladder at a slow pace
you realy felt you earned your level
BG2 and Tob you CHARNAME advanced a a much faeter pace
and the immersive feel of your characters progress felt phoney
if the developers can do this for BG2
Slow the level progress down a bit
That would make me happy

ScytheKnight

The simple fact of the matter is that the game balance has been built around the present level cap, monkeying around with this leads to all kinds of issues (werebears anyone?)

Melicamp

The only reason I want a higher level cap is for fricking level 9 fricking cleric spells with fricking lasers on them!


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mlnevese

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Nifft

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Wowo

At the very least iPad users need an option to remove the level cap as there is no access to cheats unless they get built in.

Ideally I'd like to see cheats unlocked via corresponding in game accomplishments. For instance, most cheats could be tied to completing the game on a specific difficulty.

Erg

Wowo said:

Ideally I'd like to see cheats unlocked via corresponding in game accomplishments. For instance, most cheats could be tied to completing the game on a specific difficulty.

Absolutely not. This is an horrible idea as it would remove the XP cap also for people that don't want their XP cap removed.

That should rather be done providing a modding tool for iPad, or if not possible, through DLCs or whatever they are called on iPad.

karnor00

If you have a party of six and avoid the stupid xp fest basilisk area, you don't actually level up particularly fast. Last time I tried, I did some stuff around the FA Inn, Beregost, went to the Gnoll Fortress and was about to head to the Nashkel mines and I was still only level 1!

Then I decided to let a ghoul make me a basilisk and cheese fondu and suddenly the whole party was level 3... There's a reason so many solo runs head to that area to rapidly level up.

So overall I don't think the game xp as a whole needs nerfing, rather there are a few areas where the risk vs reward is way out of balance *coughbasiliskscough*

Gallowglass

I think the XP cap was always set a fraction too low, and of course BGee has kept the same cap as original BG in spite of introducing some new content with (obviously) new XP to be gained.

Reasons:

1) With a full party doing all areas completely, I tend to be capped out by the end of Chapter 5, which I think is a little too early. It'd be nice to have just a little more progression to work for in Chapter 6 to complete their development just in time for the final showdown in Chapter 7.

2) The most logical dualling-point for a Fighter->Cleric is level 7 (as Anomen is in BG2, in fact), but it takes 174K to hit Cleric 8 and thereby regain the Fighter levels, so you can almost-but-not-quite build such a character in BG1, which is frustrating because I'd enjoy that option.

Raising the cap to 175K would enable the useful F->C build which is currently unachievable, and I think that'd be a nice improvement. It'd also enable a F->T to reach 7/9 instead of the current 7/8 and enable a F/M/C to reach 6/6/7 instead of the current 6/6/6, but wouldn't affect the final levels of any other character, so the game-balance impact would be insignificant.

Slowing down everyone's progression slightly (the OP's suggestion of 10% sounds credible to me) would keep character-development going until closer to the end, and that's good.

So yes, I think it's an excellent idea. I don't think it'll happen, though.

Fighting_Ferret

I agree about the basilisk area... also the sirens on the coast for 2,000 xp per kill... I mean there is a potion in Candlekeeps's Inn in a locked chest (yes you can break into it with an 18 STR or pick it with moderate skill) to obtain a potion of clarity, which renders you invulnerable to the siren's charm spells... you still have to deal with the poisoned arrows though, but they tend to try charm first giving you time to close into melee range. There is 14,00xp right there, followed by another 6,000 from the flesh golems in the cave (use the siren's poisoned arrows... you can even lead them out of the cave now for room to run and shoot). Not to mention several kits are immune to charm as well.

The basilisk area is worth about 25,000 to 30,00 xp. So doing those 2 areas with a level 1 party of 6 should give every character at least 7,000 xp (level 3-5 depending on the class). Add in the Ankeg area now at 975 xp/ankheg at roughtly 20 ankhegs and the possibility of the rest/respawn option and theres another 18,000xp or 3,000xp/character.

Easy XP isn't really that hard to get, nor is gold (basilisks tend to drop gems worth up to 100 gold, greater basilisks can drop leral's tear necklaces worth a ton of gold, sirens drop pearls, that are only worth 50 gold/pearl and ankhegs are worth 500 per shell).

DJKajuru

I believe that 8 levels in 6 chapters is quite balanced . Specially because most of your xp is gained from fighting , instead of quest xp's.

However, it is based on a party of six - a party of four or three characters , or even a solo , could get tremendously overpowered.

the_spyder

I really don't see the point behind the proposal. However, there would be impact. It would make the Solo players much happier because they would still advance very quickly and would mean that they could advance further. Other than that, it would make the rest of us have to slog through a lot more simply to get up levels.

But at the end of the day, can't this already be done? I know that the level cap can be removed. As for the -10% XP (or whatever it ended up being), I bet that can be done as well.