RuneScape Forums

These are my thoughts on increasing the level cap to 120 for all skills. Please read it before posting.

Ever since achieving a maximum total was a reality, players have wondered if Jagex would increase the level cap from its current cap of 99 and it seems with the release of Dungeoneering, that call has been answered, partially at least. Players wishing to train Dungeoneering past level 99 may attempt to achieve "True Mastery" by gaining level 120 in the skill. Currently only the Dungeoneering skill has a maximum level of over 99 and Jagex has stated that they currently have no plans to increase the level cap on any other skills.

The reason that, in my opinion, Dungeoneering can easily be a tester for level 120 in all skills is simple: its basically pointless. That doesn't make it a bad skill, it's just to say that there are few exterior uses for training it. The shocking thing that many players don't understand is just how much experience it takes to achieve level 120, since experience between levels is exponential, you would need 104,273,166 XP versus the 13,034,431 XP needed for level 99. This is a mammoth amount of experience, especially in some skills that have slower training rates, such as slayer. In the skill of Slayer, which maxes out at around 30,000(30k) XP per hour, it would take you 3,041.3 hours to gain the marginal 91,238,735 XP needed for level 120. In order to put that into perspective, playing 10 hours per day at maximum efficiency, you would need to play for 305 days (on the 305th day you'd have light work ). Currently only five players have enough experience to qualify for level 120, this means that if Jagex was to release a level 120 slayer monster, they would be billionaires in a matter of days, even if the item required 120 since about 110 players would qualify for 120 attack and about 75 for 120 strength.

Let's look at a skill where experience is more or less capped per day, such as farming. Planting 5 Magic Seeds, 5 Palm Seeds, and 1 Calquat Seeds earns you, assuming nothing dies, 133,353 experience per day. Gaining level 120 from 99, which takes 91,238,735 XP would take you 685 days. It would cost you, at current GE prices(though I'm sure they'd skyrocket once 120 was announced) 2,256,728 gp per day and 1,545,858,680 gp overall. Currently only 11 players would qualify for the 120 level farming range.

Perhaps later on I'll calculate the sheer insanity of gaining levels 120 in all skills from 13,034,431 XP but for now I think the reader understands the mammoth amount of time and money such an achievement would take. I understand many players are for this, claiming that some skills are 'dead' and need higher level content and the only way for such content to become a reality is for the level cap to be extended to level 120. I'd like to remind the read that at one point Rune Armour was the pinnacle of amours in the game. Creating higher level smithing gear would do nothing but prolong the inevitable facts that once more than a few players reach these levels, the benefits become insignificant. Sure you can make untradable items, such as was done with herblore, but you don't need to extended the level cap to do that.

Other proponents suggest that skills such as herblore or cooking would become profitable, however I doubt this is true. Lets remember that for a time both skills were profitable and they are fast to train, although expensive, gaining 120 cooking and herblore would not take very much time at all. Extreme Magics, a more price efficient method than overloads, boasts experience rates of over 450,000 XP per hour. That means that level 120 would take just under 203 hours, or 21 days at 10 hours per day. Sure you'd lose a lot of money doing it but it would be much faster than most skills. I'm not sure what the fastest rates on cooking are, since most players might try bake pie in order to gain magic experience. Making wines is around 450,000 XP per hour, making it on par with herblore. I feel any notion that herblore would somehow become profitable for any extended period of time is baseless and illogical.

If Jagex does decide that a level cap increase, assumably to 120, is warrented I can only hope that they think it through entirely. I myself do not want the level cap to be increased, however since it seems that it is a possibilty in the next year or so, I will outline some items that need to be kept in mind.

The first thing is, although this is an insane amount of experience to gain, I don't feel that the game should get easier. Perhaps a 5%-10% increase in speed between levels 99 and 120 but anymore and your robbing people's achievements and dedication to persue a skill past the XP needed for 99. This means that Bonus XP Events(yuck!) shouldn't become commonplace, if I leave the game for a few weeks I shouldn't see my ranking drop 10,000 spots, players shouldn't be leveling any faster then they are now.

Secondly, and this one is rather counter intuitive to most players, there should be no digression between those with level 99s and those with level 120s in PvP. Meaning that someone who trains attack and strength to 120 but leaves defence at 1 should be able to fight a player who hasn't trained combat above 99. If you have it any other way the achievements aren't worth getting to a huge group of players and they gain a counterfeit feel. This applies for all other activities, even monster hunting.

Along with the skill cap being increased, new boss monsters must be introduced into the game. If not, people who have level 120 from the update because of their overwhelming experience in combat will simply wreck bosses and crash all armour prices. The new bosses must be more profitable but not so outrageous that players who have 120 become billionaires overnight.

Things other people are saying:

Please feel free to post your thoughts.

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I think level 120 should be achievable for all skills, however keep the bonuses for it as they are, with ONLY a skillcape added on completion of the 120 levels.

That would mean: No extra damage dealt at lvl 100 str compared to 99 str....you would still burn the odd shark at lvl 120 cooking, same as you would at level 99. ETC.

Basicially having a cape to aim for but nothing else.

Gives those who want to continue something to aim for and keeps the game achievable for those who dont wish to go that far.

It would also mix up the highscores a lot

Perhaps. I would think if they raised the level cap they'd have to raise the abilities with it.

I like Funky Davesy's idea, sounds beneficial to people who have all 99's... the only downside of that i see is people who don't have all 99's will get a 99 and feel less accomplished than they do now because they may feel they haven't completed the skill if the level can go higher.