Levelling is too high in the West now?

[Postman]

All the new vaults in the Old Forest, Daikara(villages) and Dreadfall are great and fun, but they are causing huge level boost. And with all the loot collected they make drive to explore far portal irresistible, which cause even more levels. In my last game I was lvl 29 before exploring farportal. I don't think such leveling is intentional...It could be a fluke of my gaming stile "explore everything until you dead" of cause, but may be the problem is common.
What I think that with huge amount of content and increased diversity of the talent schools game has now it's possible to raise level cap and East dungeon's level caps accordingly.
Also to make clearing out starting dungeons of other races less attractive and/or more challenging - add out-of-depth monsters to it after proper starting dungeons are cleared.

[Mithril]

Also to make clearing out starting dungeons of other races less attractive and/or more challenging - add out-of-depth monsters to it after proper starting dungeons are cleared.

A simpler solution may be to make each racial starting zone exclusive to that race. This would also avoid having numerous similar low-level shops. As well as making each race more distinct.

[Postman]

Dwarves don't have escorts in their starting dungeons, but have in human's instead.

[Grey]

Restricting starter zones would be a nuisance, and would make little difference anyway - after level 10 they don't really give any xp, so doing them all is only worth it for the loot.

Instead reduce xp of normal mobs (non-bosses) to about 75 or 80% of its current level. A minor difference, but should adjust the progression curve by about the right amount, whilst rebalancing xp in favour of bosses again.

[Frumple]

... what are we considering 'too high'? I tend to hit 30, or at least high twenties, just boss rushing through the west -- and I tend to play the higher XP penalty races. Minimal exploration, maybe 3-5 levels from non-boss kills. Is full exploration and cleaning out levels making that much of a difference? Hitting 30 around the point of finishing Dreadfell isn't terribly unusual, from what I've seen. You're almost finished with the west at that point, and better than half-way through the game, so that wouldn't be terribly out of line.

Now, yeeks can be a bit different -- I've hit 30 with them before even hitting up Daikara (i.e. first tier dungeons, OF, Maze, Sandworms), but leveling quickly is one of their shticks. If we're seeing this with the other races, then maybe it's an issue.

I'd be more interested in when people are hitting the level cap, though. Boss-rush style, it seems to come pretty naturally right around when you're hitting high peak, which is about right, imo.

Not sure about reducing the non-boss mob XP even further, though. They've been hit like that before, and already give an extreme pittance compared to the bosses. Limiting the racial zones would need some kind of fluff explanation, also. Currently, the dwarves and yeek (and archmage, I guess) zones being blocked off are the only ones that really make sense.

[Final Master]

Instead reduce xp of normal mobs (non-bosses) to about 75 or 80% of its current level. A minor difference, but should adjust the progression curve by about the right amount, whilst rebalancing xp in favour of bosses again.

So then there would be even less of a reason for me to do anything other than boss dive... great.

[shooth]

How about a shop where you can go to get gimped?

This would allow people who feel they are too powerful to get the crap kicked out of them again. Maybe multiple levels of skrinkage?
Possible names:

• "I'm too big for my britches." (mild gimping)
  "My nuts hang past my knees." (regular gimping)
  "I CRAP GOD FOR BREAKFAST" (strong gimping)

Heck, just for fun, you could throw random curses into the mix.

Technically speaking, one approach would be to simply lower the character level without removing or changing anything, so that they would be unable to add any new abilities until they caught up to their "current" level. I guess this would not make them less powerful in the meantime, and as such might not satisfy their need for self-flagellation.... So how about a random removal of stats/skills? You might have to gimp yourself a couple times to get appropriately punished, but it could work, right?

[bricks]

If your tendency is to explore everything, clear all vaults, and do a few farportals, you can't really complain about overleveling. I think the level progression the West is actually pretty solid; you can modify your playstyle to skew it a little, but you won't remain underleveled for long, and overleveling is fairly limited. The East seems sillier to me - you basically just rush bosses constantly after the Master.

[Rectifier]

The only character I got to High Peak ended up at 48, then got abused and destroyed by the last fight because I wasn't using spoilers and simply got pwned even after closing some of the portals.

As for my typical level at...lets say Daikara because that tends to be the last dungeon before I hit up Dreadfell/Spellblaze and I notice that many of my characters don't make it much farther than Daikara.
I remember it being a range of something like 22-16 depending on the race and how much I grind. I absolutely hate grinding so I wouldn't be surprised if it was much lower than the more hardcore players. I suppose the only exception is the farportal because I know I can get good loot and use it whenever I can.

[Nori]

I don't think leveling can be too high. Why? Because you don't have to, and maybe you shouldn't, do everything. I say bring more content, and if you are 50 before the final battle then so be it. You still had to work hard to get there.

Also I would hate to have the other race's starting areas off limits because those first 10 levels are when you are most vulnerable and having a few "starter" areas that you can gain a few levels a little bit easier is really nice.

To end with, let people play how they want to. Just because you do absolutely every dungeon doesn't mean everyone else will, and even if they do they still had to earn their level.

[bricks]

I'd hate to try to play a Shalore rogue when my only starting options are 1) a zone with lots of ranged magical attackers or 2) a zone with lots of ranged magical attackers.

[Frumple]

Kor'Pul and the Mire would still be open for business if the shalore and thalore racial zones got locked down from non-elf entrance. Really, those two towns and their related zones are the only racial areas currently not race restricted.

As I think I mentioned a bit above, pretty sure it's like it is because of lore, not balance. There's no fluff reason the elves would lock their areas down, unlike the yeek, dwarf, or magi. The elves are distrusted (in the case of shalore) and kinda' standoffish (thalore), but neither are protective of their homelands in the way of the others.