What *really* happens when they raise the level cap...

Or new gear scales progressive to old gear, in which case the old level cap becomes a hurdle for new players and alts (cannot realistically enter the new content or recieve new drops until they do all the raiding necessary to attain the old 'endgame' gear from the previous level cap, just to immediately obsolete it once they can break into the new content). Earlier expansions of Everquest were famous for this, reaching a point with the release of Gates of Discord that any player who wasn't already in a top end raiding guild would literally never set foot in nearly any zone of the new expansion, and yet up-and-coming players found themselves cut off from those same Raiding guilds they needed to work with because those raiding guilds have no need for the old drops, no reason to run the old content, and less time to spend on matters that aren't the new endgame. The second method trends towards a segregated player base of the Haves and Have Nots, where new players joining the game have little if any hope of ever successfully catching up.

So, for you folks who've lived through a level cap raise: what can we expect when they raise the level cap? Are the current end-game raids going to just become obsolete and start gathering dust?

Yes. Quite often the average drops in the new area are better than the top-level drops in the old areas. I've seen old instances/raids become permanently deserted as the population moves onwards and upwards..

Level 53 players? Seems legit.

Short answer. Your gear becomes outdated for the new gear. Yes. Greens even.

Gear? prolly no, Mods? most likley.

Usually a level raise in an MMORPG resets everything (all PvE and PvP gear) back to ZERO. And usually it comes along every 1.5 to 2.5 years, along with an expansion with a boat load of content.


Now SWTOR doesn't seem to be following this model, so who knows.