New PS3 level cap… or is there.

Written by William on October 17, 2011 and posted in Uncategorized.
Logo of the PlayStation Network

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Not too long ago I heard that a user had managed to reach the level cap on the PS3… I was like “What??? There is a level cap?”. Turns out there was.

On the Playstation Network there are levels. PS3 owners don’t get achievements they get trophies… which are achievements. Each achievement… err trophy is either bronze, silver, gold or platinum. Platinum is the ultimate bragging rights. You only get a platinum trophy when you obtain all of the bronze, silver and gold trophies that a game has to offer. So if you have a platinum trophy for a game you have 100%’d it.

Each of these trophies have a point value attached and once you get enough you level up. It was thought that there was no level cap but users are now reaching level 50 and finding out that they can’t go any farther. The cap has been raised to accommodate those players dedicated enough to teach level 50!

It is unclear if there has been a new cap put on the system at all. I mean in computing terms it’s always good to put a data size limit into a system. That data size limit can be anything from a single bit to a gigabyte and beyond. If you have a numerical value of up to 50 that would need 6 bits of data space. 6 bits of data space give you 63 possible combinations – so from 0 – 62. So if they have not increased the data size then the max level will be 62. if they have added another bit to the size (that would be 7 bits, to me it would make more sense to have 8 bits to make up a whole byte) they would be able to go from 0-127 with 128 possible combinations. Take it to 8 bytes and that is 255 so from 0-254. So either the level cap has been raised to either level 62 or it has been raised to above level 100. Possibly capped at 100 but if it’s taken users this long to reach level 50 (and each level requires more experience than the last one to level up) then it’s unlikely anyone will reach level 100 within the rest of the life of the PS3. Unless of course you resign yourself to playing dozens of games you don’t enjoy between titles you do want to play being released. PS4 will come before anyone reaches level 100 I think. And with the PS4 I think they will introduce a different system or at least tweak it a little. I mean players will want to keep their profile once they upgrade… if those players keep their profile long enough they will reach the level cap. Unless the level cap has been set above the 7 bit value I can see players reaching it again.

After firmware 2.40 trophies were available and it seems like one or two of you guys have been playing non-stop since.