Rolling Start: Level Caps

There Are No Level Caps in Life!

Driver Level 50
Reach Driver Level 50 in Season Play mode.

Gamerscore = 50 Acquired 1/4/2010

The pic above is a screenshot from the race where I finally hit the the experience level cap in Forza Motorsport 3. in took me approximately 26.5 hours on the track to achieve that goal. While I feel a sense of accomplishment (and 50 Gamerscore to my total), I am often disheartened when I hit a level cap because I feel in a sense that I am no longer progressing.

-Pictured to the left is my gift car for reaching Level 50, a 2009 Peugeot Sport Total 908.

I am not a fan of level caps. Even if I am not earning any tangible prize like the Peugeot here, I still like dinging levels. It is a meta-game of sorts, even if it took forever to hit the next level, I still like that sound of accomplishment you get after finishing a race. Now I do not want to harp too long and loud on it as in the end it is really not that important, but for players like myself I wish they could expand the level cap so get more mileage of it.

I still have the cars individual levelling too look forward to, also there is so much to accomplish in Forza. Perhaps there are other challenges I could tackle. I will definitely keep going, I still have a couple more achievements and my final season to complete.

Blur Beta Grows

As far as level caps go, I did reach the level cap in the Blur beta as well (10 levels). I did hit it rather fast, but I do understand it is a beta and meant to give you an idea of the progression rather that the actual final product experience. Once I capped I did not have the desire to play again. Levelling kept me in the game, even after the repetitive track selection began to bore me.

Recently the level cap has been increased (to level 14) and tomorrow the beta is open too everyone via Xbox LIVE. I have wavered a bit with my excitement on this game again. Perhaps another round of levelling a playing with some new gamers will reignite my waning interest in Blur.

Home Page | Forza Motorsport

Source: SUPERGHOST's Haunted House of Xbox
Twitter: @superghost

(5)

Andrew Hiscock

April 06, 2010

It seems to me that level caps are used in MMOs to encourage continued use with new expansions, etc. While I don't play WoW, I can imagine that raising the level cap is a huge incentive to get back and start playing.

Has Forza raised it's level cap at any point? It seems to me that it is fairly useless for "carrot-on-a-stick" game design.

Jay Henningsen

Andrew - They are also used to prevent players from leveling higher than the end-game content and trivializing the encounters. You see this in a lot of western RPGs too. They prevent you from getting too powerful, otherwise you roll through the final encounters.

This is one thing I like to do with Final Fantasy games, because they have no such caps. I get all my characters to level 99 and laugh as destroy the final bosses. I killed the final boss of Final Fantasy X with three melee attacks.

Rob Savillo

Level caps are tricky. Jay's right that from a design standpoint -- developers will want to balance a game so that it stays challenging. On the other hand, as Jay also mentioned, some of my favorite experiences are when I break the game in some way or another, and out-leveling the AI is one of them.

I think that if developers want to craft a specific narrative experience, then level caps may be the right choice. For more sandbox-styled games, I don't think a level cap makes much sense.

As an example, look at X-Com. Soldiers "level" through performing actions, which incrementally increase their stats. In the beginning of the game, your soldiers are totally out-classed by the alien menace, and you'll routinely have your ass handed to you.

But by the end of the game, you'll have a squad of soldiers vastly superior to anything the AI can throw at you. And after all that time being underpowered, suddenly having the upper hand is immensely satisfying. If X-Com had a level cap, this aspect of the game wouldn't exist.

Patrick Bonk

April 07, 2010

I always had trouble having my X-Com soldiers survive long enough to be effective at high levels :(

Boy! We sure got off course from a car-game post! ;)