Hello CO-devs and fellow players,

If there is a trackable type of player called a casual player, that is probably me. I am the sort of extremely busy adult that likes to take in a few hours of MMO per week, mostly for short periods of time at a time (1 hour), with a rare multi-hour play time. Also, Im one of those people who likes to try a lot of different character types.

Im also one of those gamers who was attracted to CO because of its pen-and-paper origin.

Ive played a number of MMOs over the last several years, having started with Asheron's Call, then on to AC2, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, Ryzom, Dark Age of Camelot and Lord of the Rings Online. Except for Ryzom, I devoted at least a year to each game, or more.

CO is an incredible game, and there's a huge amount of great content to occupy you.

But I never hit a level cap before in an MMO, not until Champions Online.

I have one character at 40th level, two more very rapidly approaching it. Although there is still plenty of content, the lack of character development at hitting 40 (can't the same thing be said about turning 40 in real life?) makes it less fun. I know there is a lot still to do, but still, anyone who has read comics know there are hero levels possible, way above where you are at level 40 in CO.

It seems to me like you could easily rescale powers and other character only materials to add another 20 levels without adding much in the way of new content, zones, etc. Why not start there?

Keep players like me from moving on - it isn't all that hard.

I'm confused. Are you saying that as a casual gamer you want the game to be less casual friendly by making it harder to achieve the goal of 'end game'?

That seems counter intuitive.

Not at all. I want to see steady progression that lasts longer, with rewards along the way. The way it works now, through level 40 is great. I wouldn't change it, except to add 20 more levels.

I do not have an end game goal. My goal is to continue the fun of developing my character, making the character more powerful, etc.

Before MMOs came along, I played (and continue to play) table top RPGs like Champions (the original). You can sustain a campaign for many, many years. There is no built in end game because the best parts are the continuing story.

Single player computer games are fine with end games. You buy a game to achieve goal X. Sure, some are very replayable, but typically you play, finish the end story, then toss it out for something else.

With subscriptions, new content and new level caps, MMOs can keep adding new goals that allow for almost infinite character growth, not entirely unlike table top RPGs. The superhero genre is so incredibly flexible that it lends itself to that kind of growth anyway. The CO system also lends itself well to this, at least compared to other games Ive played.

Much like growing older, I want a life after 40 :)

If you stretch out current content for 20 more levels, you'd have lots of gaps. A level cap increase of that magnitude would require an F-TON more resources than Cryptic and Atari are willing to put into this game.

Even if they did put that kind of stock in CO, I'd much rather them fill out the game more as it exists now. Add more starting cities other than MC like San Francisco, Vibora Bay (the rest of it...not just their "French Quarter"), and Chicago. If you add value to the current leveling game, you increase the experience making alts. Since the character creator is a huge part of the game, I'd captialize on that.

End game content in MMOs are usually 5 man dungeons and raids. That stuff is pretty cheap to produce when you produce that only, without adding 10 levels into the mix. Also, when you raise the level cap you invalidate current end game content. I'd much rather expand end game rather than switch it out with something else.

Leveling in this game is way too easy. It should take atleast twice as long and should be alot harder. They should also raise the cap and making it ungodly hard to reach it.

See, but that would take away from the feeling of constant progression. They had it this way in beta I think.

If you want my honest opinion, they should more closely mirror the Hero System and not have levels. There's still progression by gaining experience points, just not set levels.

Adding 20 more levels, they could follow a similar progression of gains, just like previous levels, gaining new powers, talents, a new travel power, and another primary stat. That would also kick up the calculated bonuses as well.

With Tier 4 powers introduced and accessible at such a high level and requiring X number of powers in your class, it would then also allow characters a better chance to actually gain those powers and still have quite a few non-class powers.

This is the least cost way to raise it, requiring no new content (models, animation, terrains, etc).

I see people bandying about what Cryptic and Atari are willing to invest - how would you possibly know this unless you were an executive at Cryptic or Atari, and even then, one with access to the math and strategy book?

With all due respect, and please forgive me if this sounds aggressive, but you...really have no clue what you're asking. Please don't assume what would be easy or hard, because adding 20 levels of content and abilities really isn't something they can do at the snap of their fingers.
The development time of Demonflame and Serpent Lantern has been more than several months--and that's just for two mission chains. For content like that all the way to from level 40 to 60, it would take years. Years which would be better spent polishing up existing content, adding new powers and new powersets, adding endgame content beyond repeatable UNTIL missions and Nemesis Confrontation, implementing additional costumes, polishing the Nemesis system, etc.

One possible solution would be to fill it up with simple missions, like hunt X amount of Y in area Z, or defeat guy X in instance Z, and then copy/paste it.
Except this would be terribly boring, because it'd be just the most basic of MMO missions repeated over and over without any flavor. The current CO missions aren't exactly the tip of the top, no, but you can instantly tell the difference between an actual mission given by, say, SOCRATES in the arc against Foxbat than a generated simple mission given to you by a civilian.

As someone who started out with the first release of Champions (pre-Hero system) I agree. Leveling mechanics are a sort of cheat for dealing with all sorts of balancing issues.

When I first heard CO would level - I was apprehensive. But I was later pleasantly surprised at how well it was implemented. But as how things are now, you can't really achieve really superhuman (ie near to Superman) style powers, nor "point buy" more enemies, dependents, sidekicks, etc.

Nor does anyone who is not tied into the development chain. I agree that there is a lot of armchair quarterbacking in the tech industry and it can be annoying. The economics and implementation of something like this is hard for someone within the industry to estimate because of how complex each project is. I am deeply involved in the tools/engine and content end of this market and servicing the market, and I do have rough notions of costs of certain things based on my experience - but that could be wildly off since I don't know what is going on within these particular companies.

A lot of quarterbackers think they know what they are talking about, because we've seen a few short generations of these games come and go. But the MMO market itself changes with time, so what worked before as an advantage may or may not remain an advantage 6-12 months in the future, and the influence of maturing, competitive forces can change everything at any time.

But that makes no difference what so ever since I merely state what I want as a user :)

My original point is that I, a very lowly casual player who never reached a cap before after playing so many games is capping in CO, and I sure wish my characters could keep advancing so that I can remain engaged with play 12-24 months from now.

If I am such a tiny minority, then they should by all means ignore what Ive said.