RE: The early days at lvl 40

[JasperStone]

I was thumbing through the manual as I do every once in a while.

 

The original lvl cap was 40.

What was the reasoning for the increase to 50?

 

This was right as I started playing, so lvl is all I remember.

Edited May 15, 2023 by JasperStone
Changed title better reflect content

[ZemX]

23 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

What was the reasoning for the increase to 50?

 

It's pretty typical of MMOs to raise a level cap when adding new content to the high end of a game.  Issue 1 added Peregrine Island and RWZ as well as the enemy groups Malta, Carnies, and Praetorians.

 

It's probably more noteworthy they didn't keep adding content that raised the level cap.  It wouldn't be until Issue 20 that Incarnates added something to max level (even if it wasn't actually raising the cap).  Instead CoH went horizontal with content, adding zones, powers, story arcs, TFs, trials, new systems like IOs, etc.

[FFFF]

That was a fun time. Largely because I was playing so casually and my highest hero at the time was a level 16 fire/fire tanker. My mind was absolutely blown that they were going to raise the level cap to 50. I hadn't even made it out of Steel Canyon so to me, it was incredible you had players who had chewed through the content and had a number of characters at max level. What I didn't know at the time that players just had a tank bring like a hundred Freakshow into a dumpster and leveled instantly. There were no caps on the number of mobs taunted so this was abused mercilessly.

 

This was just a different era in the game. Characters struggled until level 20 when you could get stamina. Everyone and their uncle 6-slotted hasten because how overpowered it was. Regen hadn't been nerfed yet (I regret I never played one of the ridiculous early versions), and then nerfed again and again. Haha. No one really knew how most powers worked. I remember a lot of manual testing to actually find out whether or not attacks were properly balanced against other similar primaries (haha, spoiler - they weren't. Remember how pretty and awfully slow the early martial arts powers were?) You also had things like fire controllers being able to summon 9 fire imps versus that sad solo pets that ice and earth controller got. There were so many balance holes.

 

I think the devs had always planned to raise it to 50, and did it when their metrics showed that a significant portion of the player base hit max level. I think the APPs were really enticing at the time. Armor for a blaster? Fireball for a tanker? Sign me up! Also with fitness pool and hasten being near mandatory, a lot of players looked forward to additional power choices and slots.

[tidge]

For this day-zero player (points to self), the main advantage of the raised cap was more power choices. Keep in mind the Fitness pool was not inherent.

 

More slots was nice, but introduced balance issues that weren't quite as obvious in the max-level-40 era.

[Greycat]

6 hours ago, JasperStone said:

I was thumbing through the manual as I do every once in a while.

 

The original lvl cap was 40.

What was the reasoning for the increase to 50?

Being able to push the game out the door and finish up higher content earlier.

 

They did the same thing with COV, too. You don't *need* level 40-50 content when absolutely everyone is at level 1.

[Glacier Peak]

Yeah, they did the same with CoV as Greycat mentioned. The game itself just took longer back then, so thinking about it in modern Homecoming perspective is tough. Debt was accumulated to the point that characters couldn't level up anymore. Moving from one location, like a mission door, to another actually took considerable time when there were no instant TP to type powers, Level 14 for much slower versions of modern travel powers, no supergroup bases, the trams were separated - the list goes on. There were more filler type content too before the level cap was raised. Street sweeping was normal.