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Most MMO's are designed these days such that you follow linear paths through linear maps hemmed in by invisible walls or conveniently placed parts of the environment. The quests are designed as a means to reach the endgame in the swiftest and least taxing way; the journey does not matter anymore, only the destination.
Having traditional levels forces you to move players as if on a conveyor belt from one area to the next slightly harder area. And those areas you have left behind become ghost towns rarely to be revisited.
Once at cap the game is played out in a hub town, a few raid instances and a handful of battlegrounds. 90% of the game map is rendered redundant to most of the player base.
The idea of developing or improving your character by grinding through traditional levels in itself is an illusion. The environment in the new areas you enter keep pace with the level of your character. Whether you are level one fighting level one mobs or level 60 fighting level 60 mobs (or wearing full raid gear fighting a raid boss) is largely meaningless; is is just a matter of semantics. The comparative difficulty remains broadly the same. Why not just remain as a level 1 fighting level 1 mobs? Why bother reaching an arbitrary number to fight mobs of that same arbitrary number?
Removing traditional levels would have one huge advantage; it would mean that the whole of the map could be accessible to all of the players all the time (unless other prerequisites were required to access areas). It would also enable a fairer implementation of pvp and raids without elitists (with a lot of time on their hands and little talent) dictating who plays.
Now don't get me wrong, I do believe that some goals are required; but these do not to be traditional levels. They could be, for example; small incremental improvements, locked quests or dungeon depths, rare skills, exploration, badges, titles, aesthetic items, mounts, pets, politics, economics, construction etc.
Let me have your thoughts on the above.
Comments
I've got three things to say:
First, how can you expect to have a good discussion based on a strawman argument? -There is no such generic game you propose.
Second, are you trying to blame everything you perceive is wrong on a one feature, thus proposing getting rid of it would be some sort of a silver bullet to cure MMORPGs? -There are no silver bullets. What you have beef with is not a simple issue. Certainly not the fault of only "traditional levels" whatever you are implying with that.
Third, there is no evidence to suggest that alternative methods of advancement would be "a cure" for your complaints. If you want to have progression, you will have levels in one form or another. That means there will be gated content, elitism and everything you seem to have issue with.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Not to say I love doing this but some people do. When you level up, you can go back and beat on the weak enemies easily. Some people find enjoyment out of being able to solo something only a group/raid could have beaten previously.
One question, how is having to grind through something to unlock a quest or dungeon any different than grinding through levels to unlock a quest or dungeon as is common now?
First: I think the above is a strawman argument since you have entirely deflected the points put forward in my post.
Second: Clearly I am not, I am suggesting that greater use of the entire world could be made if traditional levels were removed. If you read my post I think it is fairly clear that I am not suggesting it as a cure-all.
Third: Again, in the final paragraph you will note that I have suggested progression that does not necessarily rely on you raising the level of your character via traditional levels; and does not result in areas of the map becoming redundant to you as you level up.
Read it before responding.
In LOTRO, especially after they made it easier. I would go into areas where the mobs were higher levels than me and quest. LOTRO did not prevent you from doing that until Moria. Moria you have to be a certain level to get the quest that allows you to eventually enter Moria. Up until then, the whole of the vanilla game you could go where you wanted. Death was waiting but you could go there.
I remember ESO: Oblivion there was a mod - Martigan's Monster I believe - that allowed any level monster to appear anywhere in the game. so you could encounter a level 15 hill giant or a lvl 20 dragon when you were level 1 or a little higher. It is where I adopted the playstyle of : he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. Perhaps that is more what you want - keep the levels but have random high level spawns in any zone - mobs you need a group to beat. I think EQ2 does that to some extent, also LOTRO.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Yeah, I can see why people loved doing it when leveling up was actually some kind of achievement. For me I think that feeling of accomplishment ended sometime after TBC; when leveling in most games just became a rush through linear content.
IN answer to your question: It isn't a great deal different, they are levels by a different name. But you would be able to do it in all parts of the map. For example, there would be dungeons of varying entry requirements all over the place. You could just go into the world and quest/ farm/ trade/ build etc without the issue that 90% of the game was so far below your level as to be utterly redundant. There wouldn't be that level-dependent progression through zones (although other prerequisites might be required to enter areas), you could walk out into the starter zone and accomplish tasks in much the same way as you could elsewhere (although certain accomplishments would be zone specific of course).
The main advantage I am trying to express is that all of the map would be usable by all of the players all of the time.
It is a strawman! In your words:
"[...] you follow linear paths through linear maps hemmed in by invisible walls or conveniently placed parts of the environment. The quests are designed as a means to reach the endgame in the swiftest and least taxing way; the journey does not matter anymore, only the destination.
Having traditional levels forces you to move players as if on a conveyor belt from one area to the next slightly harder area. [...]"
No game is like that! And most of that is merely your own perception or speculation. Are we really here to talk about the possible shortcomings of "traditional levels" or are we just bashing games with character levels? You're doing an awful job of hiding your bias.
Have you actually played multiplayer games without character levels? I have. Even if you don't have levels, content could be easily gated through practical means. Meaning, you're not supposed to be in area M without item N, ability O or skill P at level Q. All progression will have things like that. The last paragraph in your original post doesn't adress that in any way.
Do we need to start a thread talking about how having mixed level content in the same area is a bad thing?
And recycling content, or revisiting areas, is not a matter of having or not having traditional levels, but more a matter of world/content design. You complain about linear this and that, invisible walls, compare quests to conveyor belts and then say you don't think removing traditional levels is a cure for them. ... Why did you brought them up in the first place?
Bringing up your random pet peeves is not a very good introduction.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Because a) it provides the illusion of progress and that is part of the fun, and b) you can go back to low level areas to show off your power, and c) there may even be a reason to do so (example to get mount).
People on this forum, always talk about progression - levels are progression whether it is skill or an actual level. Peopl who are wanting outmoded levels at the same will want progression.
Can't have it both ways.
There are certainly games like that; the biggest example is World of Warcraft. You don't need to be an expert an the game to know that most of notoriety for that game's success is from the content at max level, whether it be PvP Arenas or dungeons/raids. Every player is encouraged to reach that end game cap sooner rather than later because the progression system of traditional questing is, for the overwhelmingly vast majority of the game's quests, designed expressly to provide filler between level 1 and end game.
I enjoy games with levels. I enjoy games without levels. There is a tradeoff of virtues between the two.
In the imaginary games I dream up, the core character is levelless but levelling minigames are available.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Nice response. Unfortunately I have never played FFXI so can't comment on it.
I like the idea that your abilities improve on some sort of exponential curve with a long period of small incremental improvements for the majority of the game-time and then large improvements as you near cap.
You call questing/leveling filler, others call it "the game" and sometimes even "fun".
I have decided to take the advice in your signature.
Well, you tapped out quite fast, didn't you? I was expecting more, but alright...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Of course traditional levels work.
Look at D3. What happened when people complains about the end game? Blizz put in paragon levels ... more to level.
He should have made a simple yes/no poll. With a fuzzy poll, he can point to any non-pure level positive and "claim" to support a non-level position. The pure poll would lose and he knows it. Thus the fuzzy poll.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
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I tried to start a discussion on how well a game could be designed without levels.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/388581/What-if.html
However, since it didn't contain the phrases "EQNext" "WoW Sucks" "GW2 Sucks" "Rift Sucks" "F2P Sucks" "P2P Sucks" "MMOs Suck" it didn't stir much discussion.
haha, you seem to think I have some personal agenda here. The outcome of the poll is irrelevant, it is just a bit of fun. The people on mmorpg.com (and more accurately the few people on mmorpg.com who can be bothered to vote on a subject such as this) are hardly a representative sample of anything.
People need to take these posts a little less seriously. I was pointing out something I personally think would make a nice change to some mmo's; think whatever you want to about that, it really isn't all that important.
Edit: I would also not that any fuzziness actually works against my argument. There is a straight no option and degrees of yes which is more likely to split the yes vote. Done this way because I did not see it as a straight yes/ no answer.
Here is something I worked on for fun for character progression. I won't get into the exact formula and numbers and will simplify it with the following example:
Every level 1 toon starts off with 10,000 health. There are minor racial bonuses.. For each level gained, the character will receive 100 pts of health, so over the course of their life (50 levels), they will max out at 15,000 health.. The intent here is that a max'd level character gets an advantage over lower level characters in PvP, and mobs in PvE.. but they are not God's, and can be easily defeated if ganged up on.. Sure there would be additional bonuses to take the player character over 15,000 health, such as gear and buffs, maybe allowing a total health around 20,000.. There were also other stats that came into play that determined your offensive and defensive capabilities, but in summary I had designed it so that it would take 4 beginners (newbies) a 50/50 chance at defeating a level 50 character or mob...... Exception to those mobs that are elite in nature..
I did add in one thing I have not seen by any game yet.. I added in 10 limited levels of progression.. This came from my military background in the USAF.. Not everyone can be a General.. Right? So what I did was have a cut off at 40th level.. This was the true ceiling everyone could achieve, but the only way to advance beyond 40th was to earn more points then others.. Once you reach 40th level, you will gain a new exp bar that resets every 2nd month.. The reason I did was many as I will try to explain.. he he he.. Lets assume over the months of playing, the player base matures to a healthy 2,000 level 40 characters.. We have all seen this in any game we've played.. So what I did was make it so only 1 character can be lvl 50.. This character would be the top of the pyramid , while everyone else fills out below.. Every 2 months when the new (xp) bar resets you could be promoted or demoted depending on your gameplay.. So if you are the level 50 player enjoying your title and go on a 2 month vacation, when you come back you'll be just another lvl 40 character until you earn the most xp once again for the new 2 month period..
I did this for 2 reasons.. 1) just something new to add in for fun.. give max level a twist.. 2) it encourages you to be an active player to keep your advance bonus levels..
I like the idea of closing the gap between levels, it also seems absurd to me that a max level can stomp on a hundred newbies without a thought.
The one elite player character is something I simply would not partake in; it would involve more dedication than I could have to a game.
well .. a non-scientific on a forum with self-selecting participants really cannot be used as proof for anything. At best, it is telling something that may be true, so you can look deeper (if you are so inclined).
Because there are always those who will play night and day, and either there is no progress .. and everyone is fed up and leave, or there will be a separation.
In fact, max level is the solution to keep the player base together. That is the reason why things get "balanced" at max level. If you look at a game like WOW, most time is spent at max level, where you and your friends have little separation.
Again, thank you for your OPINION.. lol As for max level being balanced? I take it you haven't played many MMO's have you? I have YET to seen any game balance anything.. BTW, have you heard about "tiered" gear? .. How's that work for you? lmao