How many levels will there be? (for skills and characters)

[Pladio]

Is there a view on how many skill levels the game will have ?

Question has come up on the codex.

[Vince]

10 character levels, 10 skill levels (plus 2 mastery levels). I know that many players reached skill levels 8-9, but we'll slow it down.

[skaudus]

Is the 10 levels a soft cap or a hard cap? Mostly considering extra feats from Mastermind and XP from Educated.

If 10 levels is all we get we might have to reconsider our heroic feat tier list.

[Vince]

Hard cap for now, but we still have 18 months to reconsider.

[xarfaks]

What are mastery levels?

[skaudus]

It's going to depend a lot on how much XP there is in the final game, and how XP is calculated.

From what we've seen so far (formula might definitely be wrong)


(Lvl) (XP) (XP sum)
1 - 0 - (0)
2 - 250 - (250)
3 - 750 - (1000)
4 - 1500 - (2500)
5 - 2500 - (5000) <---- maximum for Chapter 1, with 11 INT and Educated
6 - 3500 - (8500)
7 - 4500 - (13000)
8 - 6500 - (19500)
9 - 7500 - (27000)
10 - 8500 - (35500)

So far, we have 3/12 locations. If we assume a similar number of encounters/quests per area, we can expect level 10 to already be something very difficult to attain.

If we assume someone with 155% XP gain (11 INT + Educated, solo), will definitely get, say 36000 XP over the course of a full game, then its dumbass, 4 INT counterpart with no perks will get 23225 XP, which is two full feats, and much slower overall gain. In addition, I am expecting quite a few XP pinatas gated behind high INT anyway.

Considering INT also gives tag skills, we as players might be falling into a min-maxing trap right now. Mastermind will only proc three times, at 2, 5 and 8, and that's...okay.

From what I've seen so far in CS, there are many builds with lopsided stats, with many maxed out. Coming from AoD, I distinctly remember that maxing out a stat was something I very rarely did, even for dedicated builds.



tl;dr Yeah nevermind I honestly think level 10 is a soft cap by itself with the way XP gain is calculated. All cool in the pool.
I think the idea is that most characters will have a soft cap at around level 8, and only with high INT and feats can you get to 10.

[MrSean]

Having the skills go up by "usage" is great in theory, but i don't believe it works well in gameplay so far due to players abusing the mechanics to gain massive skill points.
I think you should consider capping the maximum skills can reach based on a player's levels. A lvl 3 with lvl 9 swords skill is pretty silly.
Either that or go back to the tried and true points per level design - it's probably easier to balance?

[Rex Feral]

In my opinion, I think level 10 should be a soft cap, based on total experience you can get from quests and combat encounters.

Because if at the end of the day you can have a full party of level 10 or a solo character stuck at 10 at 60-70% of the game, then the solo run is considerably less rewarding and either it has issues with endgame encounters, or those said encounters are too easy for the metagamed squad.

If it was up to me, level 10 would naturally only be achievable by a full party with Cult Leader MC, everyone else gets only to level 8-9 with the full squad. And a solo character with the Mastermind feat should be able to at least get to 11 if not 12.

This way everyone is happy, the cult leaders have a high party level, while their MC is disadvantaged stat-wise, the normal players get to a sufficiently high party level while still being versatile and playing on their party strengths and the solo runners get their overpowered character with tons of feats.

And to achieve this you only need to calculate the total possible experience you can gain and then tweak up and down in certain places where it doesn't mess up with the pacing and progression until you get to these results.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Rex Feral:

In my opinion, I think level 10 should be a soft cap, based on total experience you can get from quests and combat encounters.

Because if at the end of the day you can have a full party of level 10 or a solo character stuck at 10 at 60-70% of the game, then the solo run is considerably less rewarding and either it has issues with endgame encounters, or those said encounters are too easy for the metagamed squad.

Yeah, soft caps make a game more interesting than hard caps.

[skaudus]

Originally posted by Rex Feral:

And to achieve this you only need to calculate the total possible experience you can gain and then tweak up and down in certain places where it doesn't mess up with the pacing and progression until you get to these results.

Yep. However, if you follow the formula we already have in the most generous manner possible, level 10 is VERY far away. This is assuming a flat increase per XP requirements starting from level 3 (old level requirement + 1000 XP).

(I'm assuming this is the most generous manner because otherwise levels would either have to require less XP per level than now, which I don't think will happen, or significantly more, which would put the higher levels on an even higher perch)

We are currently at 3 / 12 areas, but 5000 / 35500 XP. That's 25% of the content (or less, if we get to revisit areas such as the Pit) and 14% of the XP (assuming solo educated mastermind, which is again, best case scenario).

In either case, if we extrapolate what we currently have to the rest of the game, I think level 10 will be unattainable by most characters and a good soft cap. Basically, while many completionist characters would get to 10, the required XP for a theoretical level 11 would be far too much even for them.

[Rex Feral]

Well, this entirely depends on the devs and what level range do they plan for their endgame content.

The 9-12 range I mentioned could easily become a 7-10 range, with 7 being a normal party, 8 being the Cult Leader party, 9 - a regular solo runner with low-medium INT, and 10 being the Mastermind Solo MC.

But I think it's more fun to have strong characters and difficult encounters than the opposite.

This is also a soft cap by the way, since no one except the Mastermind Solo MC is getting anywhere near 10, and even he will have problems reaching 11 after that, disregarding the hard cap.

[skaudus]

Originally posted by Rex Feral:

Well, this entirely depends on the devs and what level range do they plan for their endgame content.

The 9-12 range I mentioned could easily become a 7-10 range, with 7 being a normal party, 8 being the Cult Leader party, 9 - a regular solo runner with low-medium INT, and 10 being the Mastermind Solo MC.

But I think it's more fun to have strong characters and difficult encounters than the opposite.

Agreed. We do have to keep in mind however that in CS, levels only affect feats. When compared to most RPGs, leveling up doesn't really matter all that much. It's not like Fallout, where you also distribute skill points. Since there aren't that many feats to begin with, only picking a couple encourages specialisation.

This is something that I've disliked in games such as FO3, where one could reliably max out all stats.

Also, I'm assuming there might be certain feats gated behind specific quests (such as Faythe's), but available for the main character.

[edit]
Only now saw your edit, totally agreed.

Also, more numbers, if we assume four times as much content and eight times as much XP (basically assuming greater encounter density in the later areas), using the current XP system, we would only get to level 11 assuming an 11 INT educated soloer

[Pladio]

Well, I'd say - at the very least this has started a conversation going.

I don't mind level caps, whether hard/soft as long as the game is balanced around it.

For example - if the Pit requires only 1/2 skill level 4 checks, then I think most characters should have a hard time reaching those skill levels - unless they focus on those skills and/or they're tagged skills.

Same for character levels. I think solo characters should be able to attain max level if at high intelligence ... I think it should not be gated solely to people with a particular feat as that would make it too unique. But that there is a limit makes sense.

[Pink Eye]

I think level caps are a-okay. Mastery levels sound interesting. I wonder what that will entail.

[LDiCesare]

Originally posted by MrSean:

Having the skills go up by "usage" is great in theory, but i don't believe it works well in gameplay so far due to players abusing the mechanics to gain massive skill points.
I think you should consider capping the maximum skills can reach based on a player's levels. A lvl 3 with lvl 9 swords skill is pretty silly.
Either that or go back to the tried and true points per level design - it's probably easier to balance?

Please no on both suggestions.
For non combat skills, the system cannot be exploited.
For combat skills, a much simpler work-around is to put an xp cap per encounter. So even if you let yourself be hit 1000 times, you won't increase your armor skill more than 10 xp because the encounter caps it at 10xp.

[mindcontroler]

Sorry for the necro (again), but since this thread fits the bill:

What ended up being the max level for the character now in the full release? 10? Just trying to plan my full build.