When a game has a system where you can level up by earning experience points, about what number do you prefer the level cap to be?

Furthermore, what level would you prefer a typical player to reach by end game? Or, alternatively, at what point in the game should the level cap be reached?

Before anybody suggests that the numbers don't matter, there actually is a real effect: With a low level cap, level ups are infrequent (unless the cap is hit *really* early), and each level up can have more of a drastic effect on the character's stats. With a high cap, on the other hand, growth is more smoothed out. (For example, if a game expects you to reach level 5000 by the end of the main game, you will likely see some level ups and stat growths from each fight if you play normally.)

Another related question: How much of the character's growth in power should be tied to level and how much to other factors like equipment?

9,999 (Disgaea) Agreed, no cap. Nothing like hitting max level and 'now what do i do?'

Depends on the game and balance. There needs to be enough leveling that you feel like your characters are growing in power. On top of this, you want to have multiple options for building your character (IMO) so having enough skill points to max one or two of the ability types (think Witcher 3. Enough to max a few skills and be a really strong focused character, not enough to max everything). Dark Souls is a game wherein you usually insert artificial limits because playing a level 594 badass who has max damage on every weapon of every type with the shortest spell casting times and maximum spell damage is boring. And takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to get. Practically, most people can finish their first run around level 90-110 (depending on how focused their build is) and will finish NG+ (New Game Plus) to NG+7 (Each NG+ gets progressively more difficult up to +7) on increasingly small level gains. NG+ would be probably around the game's PVP meta of 140-150, NG+7 around level 250 if people aren't trying specifically to not level.

So level caps are good in some games and can force creative thinking about how to level your character. In a game where there is little to no building of your character, it often just feels like artificially limiting your character/party's power because the developer said so. So making a game where the level cap is fun, or at least unlikely to be hit during play is a good thing. After all, Like in my above example of Dark Souls, you have to do a LOT of grinding or have a mule with a LOT of extra soul items to grant souls for that much leveling.

Some power should be derived from leveling, and some from equipment. Like in the Witcher 3, I installed a mod to auto level all my Witcher gear and relics with me. Why? Not because I like their looks, but because I dislike changing out equipment every 3 levels because it is exceptionally under-powered. Now once you reach as high enough level to use the equipment it continues to gain strength with you. The end result is that most Witcher equipment is fairly equally powered (and it should be, right?) and other equipment is mostly useless (except of course, relics). This has two effects: Leveling up grants more power to the character (as long as you are using the right gear) and also qualifies you to use even better Witcher gear as you can craft it. After all, lower tier weapons don't compare to higher tier weapons because of runestone slots. High tier weapons have a little more damage and 3 slots versus 1 or even 0 on lower tier weapons. Some of those effects like poison or freezing are very useful against powerful foes and can tip fights to your favor where you are under leveled or under powered overall.

TL;DR,
I like level caps in some situations. They make sense sometimes to encourage different builds or creative problem solving. Other times, they feel like arbitrary limits imposed by devs who don't want you to be over-powered (as if that's their decision to make).

Weapons and armor should make up at least a decent portion of your character/party's power vs leveling alone.

Except that, even at that point, equipment tends to dominate your stats. Rank 40 equipment that's been leveled up to level 100, with all the Item Generals/Kings/God killed, will provide much higher stats than simply leveling up to 9999, even with nearly 200k stored levels (the point where further stored levels don't provide any further benefit). (Stored levels are what you get when you transmigrate/reincarnate a character, resetting the character back to level 1 but with better stat growth.) Well, in Ys 1, you reach the level cap (10) about midway through the game, so there's still a lot left to do; kill that one bat boss (if you've played Ys 1 to this point, you know that I'm talking about), then visit Darm Tower, which is a mega-dungeon that comprises nearly half the game. I'm thinking I don't like having level requirements for equipment; I think that it's best if they're kept separate when equipment isn't the sole means of getting stronger. I think that, if a player manages to get that one really powerful sword at a low level, the player should be allowed to use that sword that they earned. (Same can be said for other equipment types, of course.)

There is some precedent for equipment that grow with the character. For example, in Disgaea, characters get more stats from weapons as their weapon mastery grows, and characters over level 100 get increased stats from non-weapons. (Starting in Disgaea 2, the bonus for non-weapons starts accumulating right away.)

By the way, in Disgaea, the level cap is 9,999, but the main game only takes you to maybe level 100. (Note that this is assuming no Stronger Enemies bills passed, of course.)

[Perhaps I should mention a few interesting examples, like Crystalis and Magic of Scheherezade, in this topic.]

I do not like level caps, I enjoy leveling up forever for some reason.

So I want to level up infinitely, so yeah I want infinite levels to level up in video games.

I am addicted to leveling up for some reason.

Just a level number won't tell much, as it's an arbitrary quantity assigned by the developer. However, we can compare them between games if we consider what needs to be done to reach said levels.

As many other aspects regarding game design, Pokémon does it splendidly. The games are designed so your team will usually be around level 50 by the time you reach the League. This implies having trained your team and made them evolve througout the playthrough, with the possibility of late additions near the end of the map, where some Pokémon can be captured at higher levels. However, the total level cap is 100, which you will struggle to reach even if you grind furiously during the post-game.

It still does say something.

One thing to note is that levels are an *atomic* unit of growth. If, say, we have a game where the level cap is 2, we can see the effect clearly. A character is either level 1 (weak) or level 2 (strong); there is no in-between. Hence, the growth can be rather drastic, and you may easily reach a point where things are way too difficult at level 1, but you level up to level 2 (and are at the cap) and suddenly things are easy until the game catches up. (I can see a game with a level 2 cap be hard to balance unless the effect of the only level up you get is rather small, in which case why have the system in the first place?)

Having a higher level cap allows the difference between levels to be smoothed out, and allows for more steady growth throughout the game. Or, if you're talking Red or Blue, you could just glitch yourself a large number of Rare Candies and just feed them to your Pokemon until it's level 100. (For those not familiar, Rare Candy raises level by 1. Red and Blue have a glitch that makes it possible to encounter a glitch Pokemon (a Pokemon that isn't supposed to exist) called Missingno., and when you encounter a Missingno., you get an extra 128 of whatever item is in the 6th slot in your inventory. This also works on Master Balls, which will trivialize the catching of more Pokemon (the Master Ball is guaranteed to work, but the catch is that you're only supposed to ever get one of them).)

I'll describe Crystalis (NES) and The Magic of Scheherezade:

Crystalis: The level cap is 16. However, one mechanic is that, if your level isn't high enough, you will not be able to do any damage to the boss, and in order to enter the final area of the game, you *must* kill a boss that *requires* that you be level 16 to damage it. Hence, reaching the level cap is mandatory (and I note that just killing every enemy you run across won't be enough XP), and you will be at the level cap for the game's final dungeon.

The Magic of Scheherezade: This game does something really interesting here. The game is split into 5 chapters, each with a different world to explore (no backtracking between chapters). The level cap for a chapter is 5 times the chapter number, and if you beat a chapter (other than Chapter 5) without reaching the cap, your level will be boosted to the cap. For example, if you beat Chapter 1 at level 4 (or 3, but at that point you might need to be avoiding XP), you will be bumped to level 5 so that you get to start Chapter 2 at that level. Similarly, no matter how many enemies you kill, you will never get any XP past the amount needed to reach level 5 until you reach Chapter 2. It is feasible to reach the level caps for each chapter, and the only chapter where it takes long enough to not be worth it (casually) is Chapter 5.

I prefer well thought out level systems over % increases

that said, 10 levels are cringeworthy even when it is thought out

so lets say a number between 20 and 30

Depends on the type of game, but overall I don't want the game to encourage/reward mindless grind. So if the game is segmented into chapters, it should have a level cap for each chapter so you can feel comfortable going into the next one. If it's a sandbox, you can do level-scaling, TES-style. From experience I can say I love experimenting with builds, so I like being able to switch out stats even during combat. So power distribution should be at least 50% switchable equipment, and the rest being permanent or respeccable skillpoints/attributes/whatever.

I'm the same way with liking to experiment.

In fact, that's one reason I don't like having to make too many permanent decisions, and why I would prefer a system like Final Fantasy 5's job system to the skill point systems that have become too common in recent years.

Sometimes, mindless "grind" (I really don't like that term) is exactly what I want. There's a reason I come back to the original Dragon Quest/Warrior every now and then. (And I mean the NES version, not the remakes which drastically shortened the game by drastically increasing the XP gained from enemies. Metal slimes, for instance, are worth over 7x as much XP in the remakes, and the two mini-bosses give tons of XP as well (in contrast to the original where the Golem gave something like 1 XP).)

I'd say this sort of "mindless grind" is why I find games like Cookie Clicker and CivClicker sometimes fun to play, despite (or perhaps because of) them being idle clickers. Cookie Clicker is all about getting a number as high as possible (and you can go into the octillions and beyond), and that game can actually be quite fun. (CivClicker is more involved, but it's also shorter and faster paced.)

So, like that Magic of Scheherezade example I gave?

I see people complain about grind, and I'm like "I max leveled FF1 on NES, man. AND I bought 2 Silver Swords before Astos!" Sometimes, it's fun to battle enemies you're a bit too strong for to get over powered for other enemies you don't want to have to be a master strategist to beat. I like a few idle clickers myself. Watching numbers get bigger (and some get smaller, like enemy HP) is strangely satisfying at times.

depends completely on the game, the genre, overall balancing, general design, the lore of the world and so on.

Well, on FF1 PSX I leveled up a Monk to level 99 and managed to do 50,976 damage to some Frost Wolves.

(This was, of course, done on Easy, as it's not possible to level up that high on Normal.)