You would never reach the level cap midway through the game in a full group.
But, if you're not in a full group its really easy to reach the level cap prematurely. I usually play with a party of two and have reached the level cap in BG2 and then used Shadowkeeper to reset my experience/level back to zero and then reached the level cap again before finishing the same game.
I think if there's going to be a level cap it would make sense that it be scaled so that a party can still get the same amount of experience regardless of how many people are in the group. It could just be assigned differently based on the number of people.
I guess I just don't understand why the two are mutually exclusive. If the level cap is either a scalable option or something that can be checked on or off at the beginning of the game, it seems like everyone would be able to play the game the way they like it without any problems. It is a single player game after all, so how you decide to play your game shouldn't really have an effect on how I play mine and vice versa.
so how you decide to play your game shouldn't really have an effect on how I play mine and vice versa.
You're right, thats why you can use mods. I've already got the EXP cap removed on BGtutu, it isnt hard to do. The only issue would be if BGtweakpack doesnt work with BGEE.
The points were made by others but here are my thoughts: 1) Caps feel artificial. 2) Caps demotivate players that want to play every quest/subquest to completion if the XP "doesn't count" 3) Exponential leveling is very difficult when the XP from each kill/quest stays low (as it does in BG1/TOSC) 4) If a player wants to grind and get higher levels (by killing thousands of spawning kobolds) that doesn't mean I have to do the same. It will be mildly easier when he starts BG2, but he just spent 100 times longer playing BG1. 5) Removing caps encourages extra time in the game. We have to do something while we're waiting for BG2!! 6) A major part of the fun of BG is building a character stronger. The decision of throttling that "fun" so BG2 will be harder/more challenging should be left in the hands of the player.
IMO you should be able to reach level cap by doing 90-95% of the game with 6 party members the entire way. That would mean you can reach it just before the end of the game so it doesn't really affect your game, but you feel you've "completed" the game in more ways than one. Or just leave it slightly out of reach for 6 level party. For smaller parties the cap just has to be there, because otherwise it would unbalance the game. There is no point adding a check box "Break game balance". If you really insist on breaking the balance, use mods to do it.
Hey, I defeated those challenges, I freakin' earned that XP, don't you try stealing it from me now. I guess this comes from being mainly a tabletop player, the idea that I should stop earning XP at an arbitrarily designated level is just completely foreign to me. It doesn't make sense in terms of D&D game mechanics or story. The whole point of the XP system is to advance any size group's power level appropriately given the challenges faced.
Hey, I defeated those challenges, I freakin' earned that XP, don't you try stealing it from me now. I guess this comes from being mainly a tabletop player, the idea that I should stop earning XP at an arbitrarily designated level is just completely foreign to me. It doesn't make sense in terms of D&D game mechanics or story.
The difference is in PnP the DM can change difficulty of enemies on the fly to match your level. In the game it's set before it even gets to your door.
The difference is in PnP the DM can change difficulty of enemies on the fly to match your level. In the game it's set before it even gets to your door.
Solo or small party players started out facing very difficult challenges and overcame them, challenges designed for more party members than they had. As a result, they got more XP each. This is fine because XP is a reward for overcoming challenges, and it is balanced because a small party must be higher level to defeat the same challenge as a large party. It would be a very bad DM who gave the same encounter to a party of 2 level 6 characters as to a party of 6 level 6 characters.
"The difference is in PnP the DM can change difficulty of enemies on the fly to match your level. In the game it's set before it even gets to your door."
You said:
"It would be a very bad DM who gave the same encounter to a party of 2 level 6 characters as to a party of 6 level 6 characters."
In PnP you have the ability to easily change the difficulty, proving my point.
BG does not have a system that scales up the challenge. In PnP, the DM can raise or lower the challenge on the fly. If in BG there was no level cap the game quickly would get out of hand, as it is balanced for 6 person party, not solo or duo play throughs. If you choose to play with 1 or 2 party members, you are playing the game the way not intended or balanced for. That shouldn't unbalance the game (by having no cap) for the 99% of us who play the way it was balanced for (6 party members).
I have no sympathy for people who try wack-job playthrough's anyway. They are typically people who min/max everything by rolling for 10 hours to get all 18's or drop non-primary stats to 3, and try to solo dragons, try to solo the entire game, etc., all which totally blow away the role playing and original spirit of the game.
I will not stand for unbalanaced/arcade/action RPG type elements in a game type that there are very few of (party based/tatical). If you want to play Diablo type games, play Diablo, but leave my kind of games alone.
"The difference is in PnP the DM can change difficulty of enemies on the fly to match your level. In the game it's set before it even gets to your door."
You said:
"It would be a very bad DM who gave the same encounter to a party of 2 level 6 characters as to a party of 6 level 6 characters."
In PnP you have the ability to easily change the difficulty, proving my point.
BG does not have a system that scales up the challenge. In PnP, the DM can raise or lower the challenge on the fly. If in BG there was no level cap the game quickly would get out of hand, as it is balanced for 6 person party, not solo or duo play throughs. If you choose to play with 1 or 2 party members, you are playing the game the way not intended or balanced for. That shouldn't unbalance the game (by having no cap) for the 99% of us who play the way it was balanced for (6 party members).
How would no level cap unbalance the game for 6-character parties? You would have to try pretty hard to even hit the level cap with six characters, and even then you wouldn't get far above. Level cap is a non-issue for 6-character parties. Playing the game without a level cap does not get "out of hand" because the increased power level of individual party members is balanced by the fact that there are less of them. Again, that is how the XP system is designed in the first place. Have you actually tried it? It's a fun and challenging way to increase replayability.
@bigdogchris I think the issue being debated here is not so much "is there such a thing as too much XP?" It's more, "Is the average player likely to hit the XP cap during a standard play-through?" The game is balanced for standard play-throughs, not the wackjob runs (One guy! Solo! With no armor or weapons! ...And he wears nothing but PINK JEANS!), and the amount of XP that can be reasonably attained is only slightly above what it is now, if it hits the cap at all.
So where the cap comes into play is only (and I mean only) for those runs where you're doing something unconventional, such as playing with a party of four or less, or where you're replaying with the same character "just to have fun".
In those runs, it makes less sense to have a cap, because the point of the run is to break with convention. You might hit tenth level or higher simply because you're playing the game more than once. And in that case, the balance gets thrown off because you're doing something the game wasn't expecting: playing it more than once.
So for me (and a number of others), the XP cap seems like an arbitrary limit. For the players that are playing the game as intended, it will never be relevant. For the players that are playing the game NOT as intended, it's an unnecessary glass ceiling.
But it's a moot point; the XP cap can easily be removed, and it's already been confirmed that the cap will be the same as from TotSC. So everyone wins (except for the people who don't play the game. Those people lose pretty badly).
I understand the point trying to be made. However, in my ToTSC play troughs, I hit the cap even before doing much in Baldur's Gate. So I disagree that for a party of 6, the cap has no meaning. And even so, again, Trent tweeted that they noticed it was an issue.
If the cap was not being hit by a party of 6, why would we be even having this conversation? It's obviously an issue.
It's an issue for paragraphs two through four of my last post. I don't recall ever actually hitting the cap during the game, but if I ever wanted to try a "New Game Plus" style run, I wouldn't be able to benefit from it because of the cap. I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who's wanted to do that, and players like me will have to remove the cap ourselves.
But as I said, it's a moot point. Anything further on the subject is purely academic.
That's great because I'm in the mood for an academic discussion.
I believe a larger population of players, play the game the way it was intended than plays "New Game Plus". Why unbalance the game for the larger population of players to satisfy the smaller population?
It was my understanding that the cap was sufficient for BG1/TotSC/TuTu, and mods allowed removal of the cap. I could realistically see a small increase in the cap to mirror the new content. Considering both the mod-friendly claims from Overhaul and the pledges to be as true as possible to the original game, I see cap removal being a mod-only possibility. Just my prediction. Having a toggle in-game for experience cap removal seems too drastic a change from the original game for Overhaul to go for it.
@bigdogchris My point was that it wouldn't unbalance the game because a standard run of the game wouldn't put you much over where the current cap is anyway.
If it does, then that's a problem with the quest XP and monster XP being too big. But my philosophy of game design is that there should never be a point where the player's character stops progressing because they've hit an arbitrary glass ceiling. If there's a target level for the end of the game, then the XP rewards for the rest of the game need to be spaced and measured accordingly.
@jflieder Your prediction is correct, actually. Trent confirmed in a recent tweet that the XP cap will be unchanged from TotSC. We're mostly just debating the philosophy now.
@bigdogchris My point was that it wouldn't unbalance the game because a standard run of the game wouldn't put you much over where the current cap is anyway.
If it does, then that's a problem with the quest XP and monster XP being too big. But my philosophy of game design is that there should never be a point where the player's character stops progressing because they've hit an arbitrary glass ceiling. If there's a target level for the end of the game, then the XP rewards for the rest of the game need to be spaced and measured accordingly.
I respect that opinion and agree with you. If the game was being built from the ground up I think a soft cap, dictated by content, should be what is used.
In order to maintain balance, what would be easier for the BG:EE developers to do though, replace every monster and quest reward, or keep the cap?
As for hitting the ToTSC cap, I don't understand how people/you don't hit it. I always explore every area in the game and easily hit the cap. It's not even a question of if, but when.
Well, maybe that's it. You're exploring every area fully, doing all of the quests available to you, killing all the monsters... If you do that, you're doing 90-100% of the content. Strictly speaking, that should put you exactly at the cap (and no higher). What I would be curious about is to see how high your usual run puts you without a cap. I'd bet it doesn't give you more than a level or two.
When I speak about a "standard run", I'm speaking about a run where you don't veer off course to explore an entire area, you don't rest for the sake of spawning enemies to kill (especially high-value enemies like flesh golems or sirines), and you don't backtrack more than is necessary. So you might do Durlag's Tower because it's part of the expansion, but you might not go after the gnoll fortress because you might not recruit Edwin or Minsc.
@bigdogchris My point was that it wouldn't unbalance the game because a standard run of the game wouldn't put you much over where the current cap is anyway.
If it does, then that's a problem with the quest XP and monster XP being too big. But my philosophy of game design is that there should never be a point where the player's character stops progressing because they've hit an arbitrary glass ceiling. If there's a target level for the end of the game, then the XP rewards for the rest of the game need to be spaced and measured accordingly.
@jflieder Your prediction is correct, actually. Trent confirmed in a recent tweet that the XP cap will be unchanged from TotSC. We're mostly just debating the philosophy now.
Oops, I was a little behind on this one. Anyway, what is the argument for tangible benefit of removing the cap? I understand the logic of setting the cap relative to the amount of content as well as the logic of setting the cap relative to the level of enemies. If you need an experience incentive to complete quests/kill monsters after you've reached the cap (presumably near the end of the game if you have a full party), then how badly do you really want to complete that quest/kill that monster? Also, I feel it's more than reasonable to put on ceiling on the power of the party; fighting Sarevok with a party of level 12 characters doesn't seem to fit in the spirit of the game to me. The original intent of BG1 is my main point of reference in my thinking. I find nothing wrong with unconventional methods of playing through the game (smaller parties, solo games, replaying CHARNAME's, etc). I enjoy soloing myself. However, for unconventional player intent, I feel that accomodations for that playing style that differ from the original intent of BG1 should come from unconventional means- mods. This is just my two cents' worth. Of course, I'm open to differing points of view.
Well, maybe that's it. You're exploring every area fully, doing all of the quests available to you, killing all the monsters... If you do that, you're doing 90-100% of the content. Strictly speaking, that should put you exactly at the cap (and no higher). What I would be curious about is to see how high your usual run puts you without a cap. I'd bet it doesn't give you more than a level or two.
When I speak about a "standard run", I'm speaking about a run where you don't veer off course to explore an entire area, you don't rest for the sake of spawning enemies to kill (especially high-value enemies like flesh golems or sirines), and you don't backtrack more than is necessary. So you might do Durlag's Tower because it's part of the expansion, but you might not go after the gnoll fortress because you might not recruit Edwin or Minsc.
I think many, maybe most people would feel the urge to explore as much of the areas as they can. Especially first time players. Why rush through a game? Every game I've ever played, not just BG, I've tried to see everything there is, and find every item I can, and in the process, running into most enemies and monsters.
I think people doing a "standard run", as you put it, is people who've played BG many times before. Most, if not all,mor those people know how to manually remove the cap, either by editing a file or installing a mod.
Comments
I think if there's going to be a level cap it would make sense that it be scaled so that a party can still get the same amount of experience regardless of how many people are in the group. It could just be assigned differently based on the number of people.
If you want to do that, you can easily remove the level cap via mods, but the default unmodded game should not be fully uncapped.
1) Caps feel artificial.
2) Caps demotivate players that want to play every quest/subquest to completion if the XP "doesn't count"
3) Exponential leveling is very difficult when the XP from each kill/quest stays low (as it does in BG1/TOSC)
4) If a player wants to grind and get higher levels (by killing thousands of spawning kobolds) that doesn't mean I have to do the same. It will be mildly easier when he starts BG2, but he just spent 100 times longer playing BG1.
5) Removing caps encourages extra time in the game. We have to do something while we're waiting for BG2!!
6) A major part of the fun of BG is building a character stronger. The decision of throttling that "fun" so BG2 will be harder/more challenging should be left in the hands of the player.
In fact, that's how D&D is designed.
TWEET
I think this was the right call.
"The difference is in PnP the DM can change difficulty of enemies on the fly to match your level. In the game it's set before it even gets to your door."
You said:
"It would be a very bad DM who gave the same encounter to a party of 2 level 6 characters as to a party of 6 level 6 characters."
In PnP you have the ability to easily change the difficulty, proving my point.
BG does not have a system that scales up the challenge. In PnP, the DM can raise or lower the challenge on the fly. If in BG there was no level cap the game quickly would get out of hand, as it is balanced for 6 person party, not solo or duo play throughs. If you choose to play with 1 or 2 party members, you are playing the game the way not intended or balanced for. That shouldn't unbalance the game (by having no cap) for the 99% of us who play the way it was balanced for (6 party members).
I have no sympathy for people who try wack-job playthrough's anyway. They are typically people who min/max everything by rolling for 10 hours to get all 18's or drop non-primary stats to 3, and try to solo dragons, try to solo the entire game, etc., all which totally blow away the role playing and original spirit of the game.
I will not stand for unbalanaced/arcade/action RPG type elements in a game type that there are very few of (party based/tatical). If you want to play Diablo type games, play Diablo, but leave my kind of games alone.
"We are keeping the existing Tales of the Sword coast XP limit. In our testing the game balance quickly soured after 10th level. "
... ask Trent. I agree so I have no reason to challenge him on it.
So where the cap comes into play is only (and I mean only) for those runs where you're doing something unconventional, such as playing with a party of four or less, or where you're replaying with the same character "just to have fun".
In those runs, it makes less sense to have a cap, because the point of the run is to break with convention. You might hit tenth level or higher simply because you're playing the game more than once. And in that case, the balance gets thrown off because you're doing something the game wasn't expecting: playing it more than once.
So for me (and a number of others), the XP cap seems like an arbitrary limit. For the players that are playing the game as intended, it will never be relevant. For the players that are playing the game NOT as intended, it's an unnecessary glass ceiling.
But it's a moot point; the XP cap can easily be removed, and it's already been confirmed that the cap will be the same as from TotSC. So everyone wins (except for the people who don't play the game. Those people lose pretty badly).
I understand the point trying to be made. However, in my ToTSC play troughs, I hit the cap even before doing much in Baldur's Gate. So I disagree that for a party of 6, the cap has no meaning. And even so, again, Trent tweeted that they noticed it was an issue.
If the cap was not being hit by a party of 6, why would we be even having this conversation? It's obviously an issue.
But as I said, it's a moot point. Anything further on the subject is purely academic.
I believe a larger population of players, play the game the way it was intended than plays "New Game Plus". Why unbalance the game for the larger population of players to satisfy the smaller population?
If it does, then that's a problem with the quest XP and monster XP being too big. But my philosophy of game design is that there should never be a point where the player's character stops progressing because they've hit an arbitrary glass ceiling. If there's a target level for the end of the game, then the XP rewards for the rest of the game need to be spaced and measured accordingly.
@jflieder Your prediction is correct, actually. Trent confirmed in a recent tweet that the XP cap will be unchanged from TotSC. We're mostly just debating the philosophy now.
In order to maintain balance, what would be easier for the BG:EE developers to do though, replace every monster and quest reward, or keep the cap?
As for hitting the ToTSC cap, I don't understand how people/you don't hit it. I always explore every area in the game and easily hit the cap. It's not even a question of if, but when.
When I speak about a "standard run", I'm speaking about a run where you don't veer off course to explore an entire area, you don't rest for the sake of spawning enemies to kill (especially high-value enemies like flesh golems or sirines), and you don't backtrack more than is necessary. So you might do Durlag's Tower because it's part of the expansion, but you might not go after the gnoll fortress because you might not recruit Edwin or Minsc.
The original intent of BG1 is my main point of reference in my thinking. I find nothing wrong with unconventional methods of playing through the game (smaller parties, solo games, replaying CHARNAME's, etc). I enjoy soloing myself. However, for unconventional player intent, I feel that accomodations for that playing style that differ from the original intent of BG1 should come from unconventional means- mods.
This is just my two cents' worth. Of course, I'm open to differing points of view.
Every game I've ever played, not just BG, I've tried to see everything there is, and find every item I can, and in the process, running into most enemies and monsters.
I think people doing a "standard run", as you put it, is people who've played BG many times before.
Most, if not all,mor those people know how to manually remove the cap, either by editing a file or installing a mod.