Level capped areas.

[Pipz]

Do we have non instanced level capped areas planned? I think it would give players of larger level gaps an area to go play in. If your worried about players using it for experience all the way to level 50 Id just make everything inside red 3 chev at cap so its slow xp. But the challenge and rewards could be awesome. Could also make lower level gear evergreen and valuable.

 

[Calkrow]

Do we have non instanced level capped areas planned?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking for here, can you explain in more detail please.

 

[Pipz]

Areas you enter and it limit your level. So when you enter a level 10 capped area your level will be reduced to 10. You can only use abilities available to you at level 10 and only equip gear that is level 10 and below. While anyone 10 or lower can go in without a limit. This solves a couple things. 1. Wider levels gaps in parties. Instead of there being a minimum and maximum level to party with a group of people you will only have a minimum level you need to be to be effective. 2. Controlled difficulty. Since it is capped you cannot out level the area and come back to make it easy. It will always remain hard no matter what level you are. 3. Gear becomes something you want to save. If you can only enter with gear of appropriate levels you create BiS gear for each level cap that is introduced. Saving different gear for different situations makes it more valuable. As you level you won't just be trashing your old gear but debating if it's still useful.

 

[Calkrow]

Thanks, I understand what you're saying now although I know it by different names depending on whether it's function of players grouping or a dungeon/zone/area. It was the use of 'capped' that threw me.

Some games allow high-level players to mentor low level players. When grouped, the high level character is reduced in level to the low level character (mentoring) and they can then adventure together. The high level character does still earn xp (from mobs that would normally be grey to them) but only the amount that would be earnt at the level they're reduced to. City of Heroes had this and it was great. I think this would be a fantastic idea for EA but imagine it would be quite a bit of development work. Those with higher level characters could, if they wished, help lower level charactesr catch up whilst still earning a small amount of xp. A bigger pool of higher level characters helps them in the long run.

Other games have dungeons/zones/areas (often around an event) where everyone above a certain level is reduced to that level, and in FFXIV you can choose to sync your level to participate in such open events. Not sure that the EA design team would want to go this route. I think they like the idea that a high level character or characters can farm lower level content for drops if they wish. So such a sync to a lower level would have to be optional rather than enforced. Also as dungeons are all shared, e.g. not instanced, you could still get higher level characters in them farming mobs. I also think this might take even more development time.

 

[Pipz]

Ya thats what I was trying to get at. As for high level charactacters farming low level content, I feel you can make that still exist by making only certain areas limit your level. I dont need every dungeon to go this route but just 2-3. You make those areas optional. You also make them retain their difficulty. There is a ton more you can do with this concept and I get alot of my inspiration from ff11's old level sync system. I would like the mentor system you explained as well, both increase your ability to play with a friend that is not your level yet.