Thread: level eighty five?

Originally Posted by Solien

Most inhabitants of Eriador at that time would not have been able to...

- confer with Elrond
- meet the Fellowship
- enter Lothlorien
- meet and confer with Celeborn and Galadriel
- engage in direct combat against a balrog, a Nazgul, or Saruman

I don't doubt that some explanation will be found as to why we're able to enter Mordor.

WB and Turbine have found many ways to defy Lord of the Rings logic when it comes to this game, all for the god known as Capitalism and its child, money. Believe me, a way can and probably will be found to make this game go on forever. Who knows, maybe they'll let us watch Frodo sail off to the Undying Lands, and help the Men with the Fourth Age clean up.

I don't care too much about where the level cap ends up as long as there is continuing content to make it worthwhile.

I understand the sentiment. I'd be happy with 5 levels as long as everything is smoothed out. Currently the leveling, power, and ability curves are WAY out of whack. Mirkwood shouldn't have had an increase, IMO, as it was soon after Moria and invalidated a huge amount of content (before scaling).

Since 60, we haven't gained much at all, in terms of abilities, traits, etc. I think re-leveling a lot of skills is fine.

However, no matter how many levels are added, the total amount of time required to reach the new cap should be significant, with lots of content along the way.

Please Turbine, DON'T raise the level cap. DON'T!

Just introduce new areas, instances & quests, etc.

It's frustrating and monotonous for those of us with several alts to repeatedly do intro quests & leveling to keep up. And grinding for reputation for gear pieces.

I'd certainly like to see the level cap continue to rise. I find a lot of my motivation to play my two level 75 players just isn't there. As much as I like the Great River area, I keep going back to my lower level characters because they advance and grow, and my two level 75ers don't.

Gotta keep moving forward. It's a key part of LOTRO's appeal for me. Advancement/Exploration/Story is the three legged stool that the game rests on. Remove any one of those elements, and it's just not the same.

Originally Posted by difens

IF we ever get to Mordor (considering time they need to implement new regions, it will be like what, 2015? 2016?), we'll probably be at lvl 200. I seriously doubt it'll happen. MMOs don't last that long nowadays.

Ultima Online 1997
EverQuest 1999
Dark Age of Camelot 2001
Anarchy Online 2001
RuneScape 2001

This is only representative of the over 10 year old games that still have active subscribers, enough to keep the game alive. I have been reading posts in forums for Everquest since 2001 predicting that it will be out of business shortly..........LOL.

LOTRO is alive and well, and we WILL see Mordor, if for no reason other than the sturborness of us that want to see the end of the story.

Every time they introduce a new zone does not mean that they are increasing the level cap.

The level cap will probably be raised to 100.
To 95 with Gondor, and 100 with Mordor.
As for the rest of Middle-Earth, Some will be added as mid-leveled zones (Ex. South Farthing : Level 20-25 zone. ), and others will be added as level 100 end-game zones.

Turbine will not raise the level cap past 100. That would be extremely discouraging to new players.

Most likely,

-level 85 cap with East Rohan.

-level 90 cap with West Rohan.

-level 100 cap with a combined expansion of Gondor/Mordor.*

*Or maybe West Rohan won't have a level cap increase and Mordor/Gondor will be seperate expansions.
Don't forget tho that many areas may be added like Enedwaith and Great River with no level caps increases and just simple updates before we get to 100 level cap.

Rohan will come out in 2 expansions. Also i agree that most likely,new level 100 areas could be added.(Erebor/North Mirkwood,Rhun,Harad and others maybe at the south part of Eriador)

Advancement beyond level 100 is high unlikely to happen. Who knows though,maybe they will introduce a new system of 'advancing' your character when you are already level 100 in order to keep the content updated.

Whatever happens in the end,we will get to raid Barad Dur so it makes no difference to me

I'm assuming the rest of Rohan will be filled in as updates post-expansion, and there won't be another expansion til either Gondor or Wilderland.

Why does level 100 have to be the max?

I am struggling to see where they are going to go with "character advancement". Others have already discussed the fact that our character stats don't really advance after level 50. We get some "improved" skills, but the excitement of hitting the next level really diminishes in the 50+ range. Everything has been gear itemization.

With ROI they eliminated stat caps, however there are things like mitigation caps and +damage/heal caps. It is already possible to hit max on these caps with the current gear itemization (+122 for main stat) without too much sacrifice in secondary traits since everything is primary stat based. I just don't see where itemization can go from here. The Great River sets are adding some additional bonuses to secondary stats. Is this where we go from here?

On the topic of level cap raise. I think there is a lot of evidence with the Great River expansion that people will play and consume content without the payoff of a level increase. What I think will cause disinterest is the lack of perceived character advancement.

Originally Posted by Nakiami

Why does level 100 have to be the max?

That would be the most logical cap. Anything higher, and most new players will start the game, and be discouraged by the massive grind that they have ahead of them.

As the game exist all classes have 3 different sets of traiting I for one could think of a lot of ways of expanding the 3 sets with more skills perhaps with epic quest line to unlock the potential? or potentially the ability to combine some skill sets so that a nature master lm could use all pets and not have to go beast master specd to use the pets he/she earned with out losing other abilities.

Why don't they increase the cap by only 5 levels BUT make the leveling take just as long as 10 levels would. Reason I suggest this mostly is because leveling feels so much faster then it used to be back in SoA/MoM, either the exp has reduced or exp from quests has increased drastically.

Remember, its the Journey of Middle-Earth which is most epic !

I think mounted combat and all that will come with it is supposed to be the next advancement for characters.

It doesn't matter what level you end up at endgame. Levels are merely a systematic interpretation of how powerful your character is. It doesn't matter if you end up at lv 145 at endgame, it's just a context of measuring character growth. Only single player games try to be symmetrical with character levels. The few expansions MMOs have launched that only increased level cap by 5 levels have always been underwhelming and far too easy to get capped, leaving a bored and disgruntled player base. I hit level cap in Mirkwood in three days, without putting any real effort or intent into it. 10 levels is perfect for a game like Lotro, where you have to spend more time and effort trying to hit level cap. It gives us more to do and a greater sense of accomplishment. I personally think MMO's should only try to raise level cap by 5 in a major content update in between expansions.

Originally Posted by kpemuh

I think mounted combat and all that will come with it is supposed to be the next advancement for characters.

Only in Rohan. Devs have said that they have no current intention to bring mounted combat or even the uber fast horses you can get in Rohan outside of Rohan. Mounted combat is unfortunately just going to be a gimmick to sell RoR and nothing else. Maybe we can hope they will change their minds in the future, but I'd really rather have the devs put more attention into class balancing than adding mount mechanics that currently have no design to work before or after Rohan. Shame on me for hoping they'd work on important things. *sigh*

Originally Posted by kpemuh

I think mounted combat and all that will come with it is supposed to be the next advancement for characters.

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!!!


Sorry...no offense meant....just paying homage to The People's Champ!

Originally Posted by Ironcrown

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!!!


Sorry...no offense meant....just paying homage to The People's Champ!

I smell what your cooking

Originally Posted by Nakiami

Why does level 100 have to be the max?

The person that posted it made it up. They lied.

Time for the devs to take a longer look at Alternate Advancement a la EQ and EQ2. Let's start having horizontal options for character advancement not just vertical.

And personally, I don't mind if there are 200 levels if the journey is fun, for many of us it is the journey and not the destination that is important. Yes, there are always folks who enjoy a rush to the cap and raiding, but we should not be selling this as a message for new players.

Originally Posted by Ironcrown

I wouldn't expect to see cap increases to that high...I originally thought Mordor would be 100 but who knows, might be a little higher. Honestly, I only see 2 or 3 major expansions after Rohan unless the rights get renewed again. I hope I'm wrong because I really would love to see the game explore the 4th Age.

I agree level 120 will be ending point to leveling, From then on i just expect better armour grind and harder areas, no level up after that.

True, we may be higher levels by the time we reach Mordor, but overall as long as the game experience remains enjoyable, it shouldn't really concern us. As our characters gain power, we must face greater challenges, and as we approach Mordor, these challenges will become much more intense, in line with the great evil apparent in the books. As far as content, the leveling curve will probably allow for lesser intervals to occur as we approach Mordor without sacrificing a sufficient amount of content. It will actually become hard for them to release enough quests (without losing quality) to allow us to reach levels 100+. Leveling from 65-75, I found the gap from 73-75 to be quite longer in comparison to the previous levels (at least in my own mind). The increase in the cap from 75-85 will probably mirror that experience, only on an even greater scale. I hope they can release a lot of content so that we might reach the level cap without having to run dailies for weeks on end. I'm not sure if they can actually accomplish this with the "linear" type of experience we saw in both RoI and Update 6. The progression of quests moved us from city to city, fully clearing out areas and not really permitting us any self-exploration content. Some of my favorite questing regions were in Moria, where we were given a lot of exploration. Now, this is understandable considering the Dwarven architecture in conjunction with large caverns, vast tunnels, etc. that would add to the experience. To capture this on an open-region is much harder, specifically when considering a region such as Rohan, which had been plagued by desolate conditions. If you look back to regions in SoA such as The Shire and Ered Luin, you'll notice the dedication the devs put into each detail to create such an experience. I hope they can recreate that same experience with RoR without becoming lost in repetitive content.

I really doubt that the level cap will go further than 100.

There are many ways of advancement for a character,doesn't have to be leveling. It's way too easy to expect more levels. Low level people will be discouraged from that and the game will keep repeating itself.

Players can advance their characters in more interesting ways than having to level to 120 or 150. I am pretty sure that Turbine will find creative ways to do it.

Also,level 100 is a theory,could be less or more indeed. The fact remains,advancement doesn't have to be leveling,be creative

Well seeing how my first Turbine game was Asheron's Call that had a level cap well above 200 I am not too concerned about where it will end up in this game

Lotro does one thing very well that other mmo's do not: it keeps the journey interesting with solid story and revamped leveling curve and group play. This may have taken some time but at least it occurred. Many other mmo's simply hyper inflate with uber pseudo character advancement (aka gear grind) yet never touch the main world and make it something you simply speed grind through to reach end game (aka Wow).

The single greatest asset for Lotro is that players come to the game to experience the story progression as they did from the books/movies (mostly books I hope). Players expect the story and game to progress into all areas mentioned in the books. As long as Turbine keeps an eye on the whole game from level 1 through the current cap it should not suffer such a fate as Wow has/did.

Turbine will need to revamp and tweak all previous areas slightly with new each expansion but as long as the journey remains interesting, new players shouldn't feel the need to not begin the story ... a very real issue in most other mmo's I whole heartedly agree.

I for one wouldn't mind hitting level 200 one day. I would go back to Moria and kill that turtle all by myself.

Originally Posted by Reniannen

What if that's not the goal?
As far as I am concerned more levels means more gameplay. Level cap of 100 means there hundred levels worth of gameplay at the least. That's fantastic, it means the game will last me for a long time.

As far as I'm concerned, more levels means more grinding until you can actually get to the gameplay. End game is the only part of the game I find fun. I am tired of Kill X amount quests or go to this quests. I like the end game instances and knowing that the piece of gear you get will be worth keeping for months.

I'm the exact opposite. I like the journey through the game. Endgame is where my character has nothing else to do until the next expansion, so I go back to leveling alts.

Originally Posted by mac173

Ultima Online 1997
EverQuest 1999
Dark Age of Camelot 2001
Anarchy Online 2001
RuneScape 2001

This is only representative of the over 10 year old games that still have active subscribers, enough to keep the game alive. I have been reading posts in forums for Everquest since 2001 predicting that it will be out of business shortly..........LOL.

LOTRO is alive and well, and we WILL see Mordor, if for no reason other than the sturborness of us that want to see the end of the story.

1999 Turbine's Asheron's Call

I agree, turbine should or increase lvl cap with 5, or make it verry hard to lvl, or make the war-steed the new character to lvl. All MMO's with lvls beyond 100 suck and I dont want lotro to suck!!

I don't mind if the level cap was to ever exceed 100, as long as there is enough new fresh content to go with it not only in the direction of Mordor but in the opposite direction too

I'll be pleased with 85. As long as I dont have to grind the last lvls (RoI)

Gear is so much more important than levels. The difference between a level 65 and a 75 wearing quest drop gear pales in comparison to the difference between said level 75 and a fully outfitted 75 with the best raid gear and FAs. They could make 76 the level cap, but if there's as much content as ROI it'll be fine. If Mordor is 100 or 200 it doesn't matter because they'll balance the experience given from quests.