Another problem with post 126 levels...

[-Gol-]

Heh... another problem I just thought of....


Your maximum acheivable level is directly related to the number of skills you can put XP into. That is to say, the highest level is only attainable without any specialized skills, and probably without war or life magic even trained due to their high cost. If you look at TreeStats, specifically that "High Tinks" character, you'll notice this is true. Level 260 or whatever, maxed out everything. He has no spec skills whatsoever. He's only able to hit 260 because of this.

With that said, when it comes time that people are hitting this upper bound of 275 frequently (like hitting 126 a couple years ago), the highest of them will be trademules due the aforementioned problem. Should a person with a maxed out trademule wish to switch monarchs, that new monarch is going to have to be higher level, right? But how? Now think of a mage with spec Resist, War, and Life. Maxes out around 230 or so. Why? Because he has very very few skills. He's spent a ton of points specializing, and therefore didn't have many skills to train. I know, the expansion will be adding more skill points, but that trademule gets them too. No net benefit for the monarch.

Long story short, monarchs (by necessity) will be forced into becoming unoptimized characters (no spec skills) if they wish to reach the highest levels. This is also true of characters in general, but more of an issue with monarchs. IMO, this sucks. Monarchs are meant to be people too. A monarch w/o spec skills is at a significant disadvantage (yes, disadvantage) to a character 40 to 50 levels lower. That monarch had to unspec something useful to train up another skill (like spear/lore/item tink/etc) just to be higher level. That additional skill gives the monarch 0 additional benefit for a 30 point hit to a primary skill.

Couple more notes...
- They've already stated that they would be adding additional skill points. That's great news for monarchs, but trademules will be getting them too.
- Augmentation gems at 200m a pop help, but not when you're talking about 50+ billion exp. That, and trademules will have access to them too.

Here's a buck. Keep the 98 cents change.

[-Vlaid-]

lol...i can't believe how many people assume that it will work like treestats. trust me, turbine wouldn't be stupid enough to do it that way. they would think it out and do it the right way. you WON'T have to untrain or unspec anything to hit 275. high tinks had to do that because of treestats and the way it calculates exp. in the expansion, it will be a ONE TIME calculation where your current exp is totaled up to see what level to make you. from that point on, leveling will be like any other level in AC. Even if you have 4.2 bil unassigned which is max, your total exp bar will continue to go up until 275!

[Palum]

No... You are capped now by the amount of skills you have, but afterwords you can gain up to level 275 in xp. You can still only assign 4 bill to each skill and have 4 bill in reserve, and gain xp after 275. If you keep buying augmentation gems (if there are ones that are stackable or enough to keep you going) you could play to level 500 if you insisted on being homeless by time you were done.

They are going to disassociate the xp/level from assignable xp most likely.

[Tesarra-TD]

Just pulled this off of the Q and A section that was done to cover Turbine Nation:

Q:What will the XP/Level curve be like?

Answer: Most likely, it will be very similar, if not the same, to what plugins such as TreeStats use to determine post-126 levels.

[-Gol-]

Even if you have 4.2 bil unassigned which is max, your total exp bar will continue to go up until 275!

So hunting for XP will have absolutely zero benefit? Pffft...

And I was going to post the exact quote that Tesarra-TD did, but s/he apparently beat me to it. They've indicated that it's going to function "very similarly if not the same", which is the very reason for my concern/post.

Vlaid/Palum, you're assuming Turbine lied in that Q/A that Tesarra posted. I'm assuming they meant what they said. Now who's really making the bigger assumption?

[GKusnick]

What that quote says is that the curve will be the same as the one used by Treestats et al. That is, the amount of XP you need for a given level will be very close to what Treestats says you need. It does not say that XP will be credited or counted the same way Treestats does it, i.e. by adding up unspent XP plus spent XP in all skills and attrs. There could very well be a separate "total XP" counter that keeps going up even after all skills are maxed. In fact I imagine there'd have to be, to keep track of XP spent on augmentations. The quote doesn't specifically rule that out.

[BillBraskey]

they have stated that there will be new ways to spend all that xp. So capping skills will not be a problem.

[Ryori]

Levels calculation to the side, part of the problem Gol mentioned is an issue.

Assumption: Real life happens. People quit. People get tired of being a monarch.

Currently in my guild, my patron quit. If I were to swear around him, my level would dictate who I could swear to. Not a big problem, but I could not swear to any of our monarchs toons.

Say folks have a falling out in a guild. If they are high level they may be forced towards some guilds or be a monarch.

Not sure why the swearing process needs to change pass 126. But thats me. My lower toons have more earning potential because I play them more than the 147 toon anyway.

[meridian59gar]

The unassigned XP pool will also be expanded to a cap of 200 billion.

[fashtas]

Yeah there is no need to chicken little this

1. We are getting more skill pts thus more skills to put XP into
2. We are getting items to spend XP on like the enhancement gems
3. Our unassigned XP pool is being expanded

You won't need to unspec Life and War then train Arcane lore and throwing weapons to get to 275