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And, more importantly, why do they too often make them so absurdly low?
For example, I'm currently playing through The Outer Worlds, which I got on sale a month or so ago. With all the DLC installed, the maximum level you can obtain is level 36 (with only the first DLC, the cap is 33, and without either of the DLCs, the cap is level 30). Which I just hit, while in the middle of doing one of the DLCs. And yet, I still have the rest of this DLC, the entire other DLC and the endgame bits of the main campaign left to do. I haven't done any grinding or anything like that. Not that it really matters so much, in this particular case, because I'm already basically all but invincible, unless I just, like, stand there like a moron and let enemies kill me or whatever, but, even so, just on general principles, I wouldn't have minded being able to continue to level up for the rest of the game. Hell, even a cap of level 40 for this game, rather than 36, probably would have been sufficient to get me through the rest of the game without hitting the cap too early, or at all. If being level 40 instead of level 36 would have just made me even more "god-like" than I already am, that would have been perfectly okay with me.
Basically, video game developers, I'm asking you... don't put level caps in your game. Or, if you must do so, put them at the traditional level 99 or whatever (and don't "balance" your game such that the player will hit level 99 only three-quarters of the way through your game). What I'm saying is... don't make it so that your players reach the level cap when there's still probably several hours left of playtime. I'd rather get to the end of a game several levels away from any level cap, with the option to grind to meet it if I wanted (which I usually don't bother to do, assuming the game is still easily beatable at a lower level), rather than still have a ways to go in the game, but no longer being able to get stronger, even if I may already be "too strong" as it is. I'd rather have the option to be "too strong" and possibly "break the game" by making it "too easy," than being potentially forced to be "not strong enough" through an arbitrary level cap and having the game be "too difficult to complete" at which point I'd probably just "stop playing and uninstall it" as I have with so many other games, for similar reasons.
TL;DR gist: Numbers going up in video games is good. Numbers arbitrarily ceasing to go up for no good reason in video games before said video games are actually finished is bad.
Aside from that, however, I have to say that The Outer Worlds has been pretty great, so far. Kind of like a mix between Fallout and Borderlands (funnier/more ridiculous/less serious than Fallout, not as funny/less ridiculous/more serious than Borderlands, which is kind of like baby bear's stuff in the Goldilocks fairy tale), maybe with a dash of Mass Effect thrown in.
For example, I'm currently playing through The Outer Worlds, which I got on sale a month or so ago. With all the DLC installed, the maximum level you can obtain is level 36 (with only the first DLC, the cap is 33, and without either of the DLCs, the cap is level 30). Which I just hit, while in the middle of doing one of the DLCs. And yet, I still have the rest of this DLC, the entire other DLC and the endgame bits of the main campaign left to do. I haven't done any grinding or anything like that. Not that it really matters so much, in this particular case, because I'm already basically all but invincible, unless I just, like, stand there like a moron and let enemies kill me or whatever, but, even so, just on general principles, I wouldn't have minded being able to continue to level up for the rest of the game. Hell, even a cap of level 40 for this game, rather than 36, probably would have been sufficient to get me through the rest of the game without hitting the cap too early, or at all. If being level 40 instead of level 36 would have just made me even more "god-like" than I already am, that would have been perfectly okay with me.
Basically, video game developers, I'm asking you... don't put level caps in your game. Or, if you must do so, put them at the traditional level 99 or whatever (and don't "balance" your game such that the player will hit level 99 only three-quarters of the way through your game). What I'm saying is... don't make it so that your players reach the level cap when there's still probably several hours left of playtime. I'd rather get to the end of a game several levels away from any level cap, with the option to grind to meet it if I wanted (which I usually don't bother to do, assuming the game is still easily beatable at a lower level), rather than still have a ways to go in the game, but no longer being able to get stronger, even if I may already be "too strong" as it is. I'd rather have the option to be "too strong" and possibly "break the game" by making it "too easy," than being potentially forced to be "not strong enough" through an arbitrary level cap and having the game be "too difficult to complete" at which point I'd probably just "stop playing and uninstall it" as I have with so many other games, for similar reasons.
TL;DR gist: Numbers going up in video games is good. Numbers arbitrarily ceasing to go up for no good reason in video games before said video games are actually finished is bad.
Aside from that, however, I have to say that The Outer Worlds has been pretty great, so far. Kind of like a mix between Fallout and Borderlands (funnier/more ridiculous/less serious than Fallout, not as funny/less ridiculous/more serious than Borderlands, which is kind of like baby bear's stuff in the Goldilocks fairy tale), maybe with a dash of Mass Effect thrown in.
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Date: 2022-05-02 07:09 pm (UTC)From:However after that, you're able to go through the game again keeping all your stuff. I think there's an alternate ending or the chance of getting a better ending if you can complete it again this way. However the enemies and bosses all have a power up so that they're level is going over 99. At first you can struggle through it but it then becomes pretty clear you're getting outclassed. On the PS3 version there is (or at least were) level cap dlcs you could buy that raised your max level by 100. You'd still have to earn those levels of course, but your max would be higher. And you could buy that 3 times.
Once I saw the level cap dlcs I just filed the game away as 'beaten' and haven't looked back. I think I bought it on steam at some point back when flash sales were a thing. Would have been just a couple dollars or something. Still haven't actually played it on steam though. *checks* Actually according to steam I played it for 1 minute. That means the game auto-closed/crashed as soon as I ran it. A typical result for a lot of console ports I've tried on steam on my hardware.