I am going to defend that headline up front by explaining what level cap increases usually mean in other games.

When you raise the level cap you are generally using levels to gate content, so more levels mean more content.

If you go for a big bump in the level cap, as Pokemon Go did by raising it from level 50 to level 80, you might change the level curve for lower levels, but you really don’t want to throw people too far ahead.  Leveling up is often the point for players, levels being the measure of progress that keeps them going.  It is something that I find drives me in a game, even when I simultaneously complain about them.

So, back at the end of August, when they announced that the level cap would be raise to level 80 and that there would be some adjustment in the xp needed for levels, I figured I might go from my pre-patch situation at level 48 to level 50 or maybe 52 or so.

I mean, what would be the use of me skipping more levels than that?  They want me to play the game, not finish it, right?  I would certainly be happy enough to skip some of the tasks they had in front of me for levels 49 and 50, but I kind of relished the open road of 15 to 20 more levels before I had to worry about tasks again.  Just some good, old fashioned xp grinding.  I can do that.

So imagine my surprise when the update finally hit yesterday and I found myself jumped not a few levels, but all the way up to level 70.

Why level? You have arrived!

And I wasn’t just at level 70.  I had enough xp to get me to, by my calculations, to level 75.

Before and after pic

There I am 8 million xp away from level 49 before the update, then having 44 million excess xp for level 71 after the update.  Seriously, WTF?

They apparently decided to completely punt on leveling difficulty.  Here is the level milestones they posted with the final update before the patch.

• Level 10: 48,000 total XP
• Level 20: 258,000 total XP
• Level 30: 1,083,000 total XP
• Level 40: 3,953,000 total XP
• Level 50:* 12,753,000 total XP
• Level 60: 34,353,000 total XP
• Level 70: 85,853,000 total XP
• Level 80:* 203,353,000 total XP

I already have 139 million xp, so I am deep into the 70s on that front, and I have people on my friends list who already have all the xp needed to get to level 80.

Now, there is the matter of the tasks we need to complete to get each level from 71 through 80.  There is still all that to do.  But, as noted before, I was kind of hoping to have some time before I started getting back into the grind for platinum medals was the main blocker between me and the next level.  That is where my wife and I kind of have our best time, when just going for levels based on xp.

What was the point of 30 additional levels if they were going to just skip us past 20 of them?  They could have as easily just added 10 more levels and kept everything else as is.  That would have given the people stuck at level 50 something to do.

Also, on my list of annoyances, by basically jumping me 22 levels, they also dumped 22 levels of rewards on me, putting me ~1,400 over my bag space limit even after they threw me another 250 slots as part of the update.

Yeah, you’d like me to spend the money I bet!

So I ended up just throwing away 600 ultra balls, 400 berries, and all the max potions to get back to having some free inventory space.

What was the point of all that?

Seriously, this seems pretty lame to me.

Now I am back to tasks.  But they aren’t even that difficult.  For level 71 I need to get:

• 15 Platinum Medals
• Power Up Legendary or Mythical Pokemon 20 times
• Make 999 nice throws
• Catch 100 Pokemon in a single day

I am already past the first one, and the second one I can do right away.  999 nice throws is just a matter of time, leaving catching 100 Pokemon in a single day… which was a task in a previous level, so seems pretty doable.

The platinum medal thing is going to be my downfall.  I have 26 currently, which gets me past the level 74 requirements.  After that, I need more… up to a total of 50 to make it to level 80.

I mean, it isn’t impossible.  There are a lot of the medals… and I counted 70 possible medals when I did my medal strategy post for getting to level 49… but a lot of them are just kind of lame “I did the same thing 50K times” sort of achievements.  I burn out on those a lot faster than I burn out on levels.

Oh well.  We’re there now.  There is no stuffing this particularly smelly genie back in the bottle.  I am level 70 now.

Meanwhile, as the company was getting ready for the patch, they introduced a new weekly party/group activity thing that, if you complete it, apparently has a fair chance of bricking your game.

Fortunately for me the whole thing was so buggy that my wife and I couldn’t even get the whole thing started.  But I guess this is the level of effort the new owners of the game, Scopely, are good for.  Of course, they are owned by the same investment group that is trying to buy out EA, so here is another vision of the future for that company.

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