Bungie On Destiny level cap, raids and game size

After the 4.8 million players who got stuck in to the online first-person shooter laid down their weapons, Bungie had questions to answer. For the first time Destiny had bared its soul, and we all had our say on what we saw. Like, for example, why limit raids to just six players? And why can they only be played with friends? Oh, and why is the game limited to just one area on each of the four worlds included at launch? And what's up with the level cap? Just how high can you go?

At Gamescom Eurogamer sat down with director of production Jonty Barnes and lead concept artist Jesse van Dijk to put these questions, and more, to Bungie.

[ATi_Elite]

"Level Cap" for a game that NOT a MMO it sure does have a lot of MMO characteristics. lol

[cl1983]

How ever leveling doesn't stop your character from advancing in sub classes.

[GameSpawn]

Yup. As mentioned in the article, 20 is the soft cap (earned through experience points) and 30 is the hard cap (through the Light things).

In all honesty with most games once you hit the developer's intended level cap you are basically a tank. There is some diversity between the classes and subclasses that may still make a difference in PvP, but as far as PvNPC once you reach the cap there will probably be very little that could stand against you (especially with high level equipment). I imagine the high level raids will still have 1 or 2 boss enemies that a fully leveled character would still take some time to take down, but 2-3 fully leveled co-op'ers could chew through real easily.

[uptownsoul]

@ATi_Elite You do realize that "Level Cap" is not exclusive to MMO's…They're very standard in single player RPG's like the Fallout, Elder's Scroll, Mass Effect--Pretty much EVERY RPG has a "Level Cap"

[ShoryuSwordsman]

@gamespawn I guess u don't play too many mmo's. Maybe in a typical rpg, specifically jrpg's, once you cap out you are pretty much unstoppable. But everything has end-game content. even in FF14, when i already had nearly full iLvL90 gear(back when 90 was the item level cap) it is literally impossible to solo, or even duo most dungeons. Most mmo's also follow that format. and even if we can solo a lot of things, there's hard mode and likely a hero/hell mode (or something of the sort) that will be just as difficult, even with maxed gear, but will yield much better loot than the lower difficulties.

[morganfell]

Importantly, the remark was made that people reached Level 8 rapidly to which Barnes responded, "In the Beta". So obviously he is indiciating that progression will be slowed as compares to what we experienced previously in the Alpha and Beta.

[Transporter47]

Without the MMO fee...

[Volkama]

It's Activision. You can be quite confident that they have a solid plan in place to monetise the game beyond the initial purchase.

[Sokol]

This is Activision, I expect numerous and expensive DLC to hit Destiny within the first 2-3 months of the game release. So much content appears to be locked up I have a sad feeling the DLC won't be the only aspect that gamers will have to pay for..

Personally, I had a great time playing thorough the story portion of the game and this will probably be only reason with some solo exploration on the side where I will play.

Not until price drops or the story expansions are released in a properly priced bundle.

There is nothing wrong with Destiny, no matter how much Bungie spins it , be assured, this is a MMO with numerous expensive DLC.

If this is your thing , by all means. :)

For me personally, I have no desire or time for MMO.

[smt_Nocturne]

i hope they don't increase Level cap later on. in Borderlands 2 i spent hours farming Bee shield, killing the Warrior for Conference Call, than they increased level which made all my gear/weapons/mods weak and i had to farm them again. i ended up asking myself why the @#$% i'm doing this ? i'll just wait for all level DLCs to get released or ask anyone for Lv72 gear.

[Jdoki]

I would highly recommend going in to Destiny assuming that the level cap will be raised at some point. It will probably coincide with later expansions.

It will also be dictated by how fast the community hit level cap.

[700p]

Its weird how the more i hear about this game..the less i care for it.

[cr33ping_death]

Yet here you are

[BrianG]

@cr33ping_death ever think he is here like me, to get information on a game that we were once hyped about?

For me the game is getting smaller and smaller. I went from a must own to definitely passing on release day. The level cap was one thing, but for this HUGE game to only have 4 locations at launch, that's a part I can't let go.

[cr33ping_death]

@ brian g... with his one bubble? I highly doubt that ;)

[BlackWolf12]

Are you serious?

The ONE feature of this game that screams MMO to you is having a level cap?

Do you think that EVERY single RPG that was ever created had infinite leveling? Every single game that has been made with 'leveling' has a level cap. This is NOT something that WoW pioneered.

[Dasteru]

Not every game has a level cap. Two Worlds doesn't, neither does Tibia. There are other games also but i cannot remember the names atm.

Come to think of it, Skyrim no longer has a level cap since the Legendary update.

[CrossOutPSN]

Well someone disagreed with you when all you stated were hard facts lol. don't know what that guy was getting at. And Dasteru you were able to mention 3 games that don't have level caps. this doesn't provide a strong counter argument at all if that is what you were going for. besides at least one of those games out of the three you mentioned were probably not even worth mentioning *cough* Two *cough* worlds *cough*

[Dasteru]

Well he said "Every single" so the point remains. There are other games as well but i cannot remember the names. Also Two Worlds was a decently fun game, most people just didn't give it a chance because of the unusual character animations and horrible voice acting.

[annus]

Plenty of RPG's (even non-RPG games like CoD) have level caps, they aren't exclusive to MMOs...

[The Meerkat]

My level 1 COD soldier can no-scope your Level 70 Diablo Wizard in the face.

Level numbers mean nothing without context.

[CrowbaitBob]

@The Meerkat

Your COD soldier can't even breathe the same air as my Diablo Wizard.

[The Meerkat]

@CrowbaitBob

My COD soldier has a respirator skin AND he's on a Painkiller deathstreak!

[CrowbaitBob]

@The Meerkat

DAMN IT!!!!

[Drithe]

I'm taking a little ride to Bungie and force them to give me this game. I will make them an offer they can't refuse. :)

End of line.

[ScottyHoss]

What's the offer?

[WalterWJR]

A horses head

[Tetsujin]

Or invite them to an Italian place and have someone hide a handgun in the toilet.

[BlackWolf12]

Or just wait 2 weeks and get it normally, without the need to harass the developers.

You've waited 1.5 years, 2 weeks won't kill you.

[voodoochild346]

The joke.

Your head.

[lonelyplayer]

20-30 is too low for this game IMHO. Especially when I was able to get to level 8 in few hours.

[Daves]

Not really, I think it will be a bit like Guild Wars (the original). 20 was the level cap, but that was just setting you up for the rest of the game.

There will be much to do beyond reaching 20.

EDIT.. Motes of light taking you to virtual 30 for one ;)

[thorstein]

From the article:

"It seems like you can get to level eight pretty quickly.

Jonty Barnes: For the beta.

But 30 is the level cap?

Jonty Barnes: Yeah.

Did you speed progression up for the beta?

Jonty Barnes: There was access to certain objects you got earlier than you would have done, because we wanted to give you exposure to them in the Iron Banner. But things have changed. That's one of the reasons for wipes. There were certain things you shouldn't be getting so early. It's a different world at launch, but not entirely unfamiliar."

[Jdoki]

What does level cap matter when you're having fun?

I don't get this attitude of 'race to level cap'. If the game gives me value for money and fun I don't care.

I played WoW for years and rarely hit level cap because I was just having fun exploring and rolling new characters.

[mogwaii]

Thats exactly what games should be for.

[BiggerBoss]

What, are you just gonna stop playing when you reach max level? There's more to the game than just leveling your character up

[Back-to-Back]

Once you get to the level cap that when true pvp starts. At least that's how I am going to treat it.

[ShowGun901]

yea the caps will affect PvP, so it being slightly lower makes the playing feild slightly more even... a little lol!

[ramiuk1]

yeah thats my worry,i got to lvl 8 within day 1 of beta ,would of prefered it to have around 70lvls like eq2 etc and then when a expansion comes on raise it by 10 or so.

either way i have cancelled my preorder because i have lost alot of antispation for this over last month.
might reorder again but unsure

[Kane22]

damn, even dragon age's level cap is 30....so called big worlds with low level caps.

[mrmonk]

Cannot wait for this game hurry the **** up September 9th!!! Mite have to book a day or 2 off work lol

[TheProjectAli]

Hopefully the exploration aspect will have fun activities.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

DCUO caps at 30 last time i checked yet there is PLENTY to do. I dont think it will be a problem.

[VonSchtook]

Can't wait for release. I'll be playing on X1, and as a long tenured MS gamer, I can assure my PS4 brothers that you'll soon find out that Bungie is very good at making games with those 'goosebumps' moments that we love about gaming. I, for one, am glad Bungie is going multi-platform. It's just better for the whole industry.

[mogwaii]

Mate a shit ton of us PS4 owners were xbox360 owners last gen and xbox owners the gen before that, you're not the only one to play halo.

[VonSchtook]

Fair enough. Didn't mean offense, just saying that most PS4 owners probably haven't played a Bungie game before, especially in this 'early adopter phase'.

I agreeed with you, btw.

[thorstein]

Hard to believe but I was a Bungie fan before they went to Xbox. I was a huge Myth: the Fallen Lords fan.

"Make a hole!"

[leemo19]

Doesn't bother me level 30 is the cap, plenty of games that 30 is the limit. Its all about how much content there is to keep you busy and Destiny there's going to be tons of it.

[SLUG]

I would like to play on the bigger planets like saturn in the game what will saturn look like in the game ?

[KiwiViper85]

Saturn is a giant ball of gas. You would be sucked into the centre and vaporised most likely.

[Omnisonne]

Yh, Saturn's moons would be a better option I think lol
Or perhaps a massive Old-world space station orbiting around Saturn

[HacSawJimThugin]

I keep telling myself ,you've made it this far champ only a little bit longer. August is whizzing by but not as fast as I like.

EA Access has distracted me a little but it pales in comparison to my hunger for this game. Warframe drops on XB1 on September 2nd and I plan on piggybacking that until the 9th. Man its been a struggle waiting for 9/9, but it's almost here.

[Npugz7]

I have a bad feeling this game is a lot shorter than what people think!

[Jag-T1000]

Don't worry. You can buy the DLC.
Its the new trend.

[GW212]

I have a good feeling you are totally wrong.

[lashes2ashes]

My issue with the game world size is they keep stating its huge compared to other bungie games. That's fine but it seems like the type of mission based game play they are going for is not as big as other games of a similar game style. Now perhaps there is a lot more to do than was seen in the beta but it seems like at least old Russia was the same exact thing in every mission over and over. The world seems to me to be lifeless compared to other open world spaces like in borderlands or fallout or bioshock.

[BattleAxe]

I don't like their response to the raids not having any matchmaking. I already know i'm not going to have enough friends to play with, so rather than having to sit around in public areas trying to add people who I don't know to my friends list, I'd rather be able to just go and play.

People who are in matchmaking for the raids, are there because they want to do some raids....Bungie's logic makes no sense with this.

[Omnisonne]

I remember random players leaving frequently in the middle of a strike mission.
Maybe because they had to leave for diner, didnt like the way their teammates played or for whatever reason.

If ppl leave mid game in a Raid, or worse almost at the end, you'll be left on your own unable to finish the raid after all the effort and time you invested

I think thats what Bungie meant

[N4Flamers]

That is very true. Bungie however wants you to go to the tower and look for people? That's exactly what matchmaking would be doing. They can have a pregame lobby but it seems they dont want to implement a system and are expecting us to fill in the gaps of this poor design choice.

[PS4isKing_82]

Sorta off topic here I know but I just found a listing on Amazon for the white vertical stand for the glacier white ps4. I just hope Sony announces a standalone white ps4 soon cause I really don't want the bundle. I know Europe is getting it without the bundle, but I really hope we do too.

[1nsomniac]

Their response to the game being small of - "it's ok because as you level up your character with new equipment, you will replay in different ways" has instantly swung it for me, I'm really not interested in this at all!

[CrowbaitBob]

Actually, their response to complaints that the game is small was bascially "It's not small, you have no idea how big the game is having only experienced a very limited version in the alpha and beta."

What you quoted has nothing to do with the size of the game, unless you actually believe an arbitray number like 30 or 50 or 20 or 100 in some way indicates game size.

[1nsomniac]

Read it again, there's about 4 paragraphs worth of them explaining how the Beta was a massive part of the game (albeit also saying it was just the tip of the iceberg??) although there's only a few worlds this is expanded because as you level up you will get more powers/weapons which will make you play through the missions in different play styles.

That's called padding out. It's not ground breaking, it's not even interesting, it's laziness. The intention being that we can sell a small portion & continue to update it with paid DLC into a substantial product. All they are adding for free is variations of missions which is again recycled padding.

Buying day 1 seems like a ridiculous thing to do for this game as your paying more & getting less. It'll be the people that buy the 'GOTY Edition' a year down the line that will actually be getting the completed product as it will include all the stuff they kept out the first time.

[CrowbaitBob]

@1nsomniac

After re-reading your first comment I have to admit I projected a bit in my interpretation of your words having read so many people complaining about the level cap. My bad.

Having said that I think it's premature to assume that 4 areas is a useful indicator of game size. Skyrim, for instance, basically had one area. It was huge.

I'd love to be able to go somewhere other than Russia on earth, having spent so much time running around that area during the Alpha and Beta, but I also recall several locations that I could only glimpse the beginning of due to OP enemy gatekeepers. I expect there will be much more to that single Earth location than we have any current idea of. The same could be said of the other single areas.

Clearly this game is being built as a DLC/Expansion pack delivery device (i.e. franchise), but I don't think there's enough evidence to judge either way on the size of the core game at this point. That said, it never hurts to just wait a while after launch to see what the game actually has to offer before dropping money on it.

[N4Flamers]

I agree 100% the game seems like it might be repetitive and could be short. We dont know yet. You can always rent it but its a day one purchase for me. I loved the beta and I played the same 5 missions for a week straight.

[SmilingAdvocate]

Cant understand why people are moaning. After playing the alpha and the beta, and then reading this article in full i think it is going to be a fantastic game. The game is going to keep expanding so by the time you've "completed" or "leveled up to the max" there will be new things in the world which will keep you coming back. I think you'll be silly not to get it on day one.. you will fall behind.

[AengerdX]

My Legendary Destiny is Waiting!

[Zombro]

Boring beta gonna have to wait tilla price drop

[Thomaticus]

I like the leveling system in Diablo. The paragon skills help you to at least feel like you're leveling up. I think that a level cap is too low. I believe that that level cap will rise. By raising the cap later in the life in the game is a good way to bring people back to the game after they have gotten some characters to level 30.

[DirtyLary]

An instanced hub which is merely a graphical menu is hardly a mmo.