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Why does GW2 have levels?
Foomerang
Member UncommonPosts: 5,628
in Guild Wars 2
If we are to believe that,
A: This is not a gear-centric mmo
B: You can sidekick players to match levels and,
C: Leveling is not a grind and is relatively fast.
..then why have levels in the first place? Is it to stagger spells and abilities? If so, a skill point system would be much better imo. Is it to make gamers feel like they are progressing? Lame.
I think Anet should ditch leveling in GW2 altogether.
Comments
I agree with you 100%
But people seem to like levels, gives them a sense of acomplishment. Or at least that is what ArenaNet said of the matter.
I don't see your point but your opinion is taken and so I say whatever.
I think it will be fun, entertaining, just like SWTOR, The Secret World and hopefully World of Darkness. I used to come to this site hoping for inside scoops, cool opinions about game development and insights on playing. But lately the negativity and the banality makes me think it would be better just checking out Massively on occasion and viewing other game sites with more focus and a btter community.
Later.
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Stay Alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Laser Handy!
Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues!
In my mind's eye, I picture forum conversations as if Im in a bar sitting at a large table with some friends, sharing a few pitchers. Sometimes I think people tend to read topics with a pessimistic slant. Maybe they picture someone shouting or whining or pissed off. Anyway, I hope you feel better, maybe a break would be good for you. Take care.
I believe that most GW1 players would completely agree. The minimal leveling in it was easy and removed any grind. However, the gaming community at large did not like 'finishing' the game at level 20...go ahead just ask. It was one of the major complaints along with the instancing.
This being said, the only way that Anet could guarantee to make these people happy was to have some kind of leveling placed into the game. So now rather than being completely leveled at the end of a weekend of playtime (at worst), now we'll have to play an estimated 120 hours to reach level 80.
Because people don't game for enjoyment they need to "work at it."
L-M-F-A-O, sorry 4 u
I don't see why leveling should be removed. What is so bad about leveling?
One does not go around questioning GW2! That's blasphomy, Guilwars 2 is as it should be, it's like the laws of physics...you don't question them you work around them...
...
There are many topics about this issue. This has been discussed multiple times mate.
Ah my bad. I didnt see any in the first few pages. I'll just dig a bit deeper then. BTW did anyone have an answer besides, "who cares" or "why not"? heh
I tought about this same thing yesterday.
If all of the game is ''end game'' and the ''endgame'' & leveling phase are the same why there even is leveling, whats good about it?
But then when you think about it more with levels you can make that whole world is not open to you right away. You slowly are able to go to new places, get new skills and become stronger. I just find that a good thing myself.
If leveling is mainly fun and not grind based it's not a bad thing.
and tbh in most MMORPG's (or in half of em) I have had my most fun time in leveling with friends. Finding out new cool places and things like that (Leveling main characters that is).
Also while able to gain levels you never feel like you don't have anything to do.
Rofl^ at least you see the pattern!
Devs said that they were hesitant to abandon levelling totally as it might be another risk on top of the other conventions they were abandoning that just might be too much for ppl.
Another example of this that they talk about changing from ACTUAL feedback is the addition of the "scout system" from testers ie Mr(s). "!" wandering around for ppl that don't see smoke in the sky and think Fire or are not as good samaritan as ArenaNet was hoping!
I don't know how true this is tbh. Probably is a commercial reason with some grounding eg Levels go back over 25yrs and beyond...
That said, I think you have to be requested to side-kick up from another player, so it seems to me Levels actually do act as a funnel as to WHERE your character should be in the world and which set of DE's they should be doing. Ie the if you read the wiki you notice one is active (up) and the other is passive (down) - subtle but important difference ; )
That's sounds a bit well lame, put like that but there's probably v good reason also:
1. Link areas of the map with your PS progression and add story that links up to it in the DEs. ie SPOILER avoidance
2. Natural journey progression of the character from home to horror as it were that can be represented in the types of lore encountered as well as the types of gameplay tests and parameters for players who are simply better by mid-level eg
3. Most importantly players want feedback they are logging in and achieving doing anything: Which is again not a bad thing for a game to do. Reminds me of those rats with electrodes in their brains... ; ) but still all good.
4. Probably funnels populations in a more controlled way if they guess what players are up to ie server and area load "is not expected to reach max."
Tbh if it's incorporated into the design in a good way it's not so bad. Personally I would like it to be made more invisible and you rely on your PS-%-meter-completion to tell you how much you have progressed. But think the above reasons outrank individual preference overall. Eg I won't be using the scout system ever.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
There are 2 main reasons why levels are still in.
The first is that it acts as a progression measure. Is it lame, yes, but it's on of the most efficient way right now. At the core, skill points will just be another number instead of levels. Having 320 skill points could be the same as being level 30, or something. If you were to level skills up individually, then everyone could in the end max out all the skills. If you can only max out... say 30 of the 80 skills, then that would be the new level system. "LFG with 10 maxed skills" in lower level area... up to "LFG with 30 maxed skills" in higher level areas. In the end, skill points and skill levelling are just another way of measuring experience. Not to mention the points needed for attributes.
The second reason is to appeal to a wider range of audience. GW2 has no monthly and will want every ounce of money they can grab. Almost everyone from GW1 does NOT want levels. But I guess GW1 players are not enough for GW2. Adding a "regular" system would appeal to more people.
So it is kind of lame... but not really... since levels are ALMOST required. Any game with any type of progression will almost always have levels. Maybe not character levels, but levels based on weapon tiers, unit tiers, what percentage of the game is open, blah blah. In the end, there needs to be some sort of progression measuring mechanic.
Of course, the other way of doing an MMO without levels is to have no progression at all. No progression at all means that the whole world would be open, and the end boss would be up for battle RIGHT away.
If you blocked off the some of the areas, than you would have to throw in some sort of progression mechanic to "unlock" new areas. If to unlock the next level, you needed to kill a boss, than what would stop you from killing that boss right away? Eventually, you would have a world with 60 bosses that open up 60 areas. For others to guage how effective your character was, it would have to say what boss you killed and what area was currently open to you. And it would like this...
Player One -
Norn
Ranger
47 Bosses defeated
Which looks a lot like this...
Player One -
Norn
Ranger
Level 47
I also think it would have been interesting without levels. Perhaps it could have helped the game get more of an open feeling and not so much follow a set path. But as others have said I think Arenanet don't want to alienate the mainstream RPG crowd, who are so used to levels.
Anyway since the leveling curve is flat with little to no grind I don't mind it either.
its hard to think of an system without levels which hasnt been exploited to the fullest already....
Have seen some games with like skillpoints instead of levels and thats..yeah...lets say i play such games for 3 minutes max
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
My real problem with levelling - a level 50 rabbit may kill the whole level 10 wolf population and won't lose a single hitpoint.
It's plain stupid and once i realised it several years ago, I can't stop thinking about it
That is just one of the problems. It also makes characters very similar to eachother, it makes mobs rather predictable (meaning you can see how dangerous something is by looking at it's level instead of forcing you to look how dangerous it looks) and so on.
Levels are not great and Strain actually considered several other ways (including no levels and unlimited numbers of levels) from the start but it seems like they decided to play safe this time. I can see why, thy are trying many new things and too many might be too much at once if they want to sell a lot.
I've gotta agree with heavyhebrew here... I was new to MMOs and looking for new things MMO related (mostly GW2 related) and came to this site aswell. But this site is nothing but a cesspit, filled with with such bitter & jaded MMO players that I just don't bother coming here that often. Prefer the GW2guru site, for GW2 stuff, even if that site's mods are a bit heavy handed (this thread would have been locked already :P).
As for levels... I actually like them. I like that feeling of progression, where each level brings something new. Either new skills, abilities, weapons or gear. Levels make it possible to know whether something would be challenging, or a walk-in-the-park (I tend to prefer the former). I don't really see what people have against them and seriously... how else would they measure my character's progression?
I'm kind of new to the whole debate about skill points instead of levels, so I'd be curious to hear what kind of system the OP has in mind specifically and why they think it's better than levels.
That being said, I'm not sure a skill point based system would work. GW2 seems to be all about giving people plenty of gameplay options and then forcing them to make tough decisions about which they want on the skill bar. For instance, there's only one stat for attack damage (Power) and it affects melee, ranged and spell damage. They want you to be able to pick up a new weapon and instantly be able to try it out. Different weapons also have different strengths. Axes for single target damage, greatsword for AOE. In the pre combat stage you have tons of flexibility with planning out your weapons, traits and other skills.
Now obviously I don't know exactly what the OP has in mind, but I'm not sure how you could have a skill point based system that doesn't feel limited by comparison. It seems like once you started putting points into a weapon or utility skill to make it work better, you're stuck with it for all tough content.
I guess that invites a more general question. If GW2 is not about grinding, how do you have a meaningful grindless skill point system? I'm not being argumentative here. I'm interested in hearing about it.
I do want to point out that in a way GW2 does have a system of traits where there are 100 or so for each profession that are unlockable throughout the world. In a way this appears to be somewhat like a skill point system but where you're gaining flexibility instead of power (since you only have a small number of slots for traits at one time).
I will say that I am one of the people who would have preferred GW1 to have more levels. I get why they capped it at 20 and I didn't really mind it, but at the same time I like the feeling of progression.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Same way EVE did it with its skill based system and the Secret World is going to? leveling is not the only way to measure your characters progression, just that we are used to it because it is the most basic formula.
Had a feeling someone would bring up Eve Online... And personally I find that method to be something that caters to only the hardcore players, who will ensure that their skills are continously training. Whereas the casuals (the people Arenanet are mostly aiming towards) who leave the game for a couple months, to play something else, would feel as though they've fallen behind. As for TSW... it only works in that game because there aren't any classes either, and you augement your character through the 400+ skills you can choose. I just don't see that working in GW2 either.
Excatly. lol... I mean you can like choose to ignore it yourself?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
You know man I completely agree that GW2 should not have leveling. It would be totally revolutionary, and it actually would not change the game up much. BUT, and here's the big but. At the end of the day, ANet does want to sell copies and bring in parts of the crowd that are super involved with the "other" types of themepark mmo's and in order to do so they need artificial progression
. Most people don't feel like they are progressing as a character unless they see that number going up next to their unit frame. So, it is sort of a needed feature to pull in these types of people, but then again maybe without leveling it would pull in even more people, because they would be like what do you do in this mmo if you don't level? Lol, while those of us who have played through the years and seen everything, realize that leveling is just artificial progression and doesn't really mean anything.
Edit: Like another said, they are already risking a lot with removing the trinity and such, and adding new concepts into the MMO world. So, it is understandable that they take some measures of familiarity for those who can't bare the thought of change. I also wish there weren't those who needed to have their hand held. The same poster was talking about the scouting system, and it reminds me that at first the DE's weren't even announced to you. You just went out into the world and found them! However, their testers probably grew up in the age of themepark and don't know how to function without devs holding their hands through content. Although you can turn this feature off, it still doesn't feel the same as it would if it weren't a feature at all.
ePeen propped up by skill points is not as "fun" to wave around as ePeen propped up by levels. Personally, I don't subscribe to the whole ePeen thing, as these are games and any "accomplishments" in them are meaningless outside of the fun derived from said "accomplishments". However, there seems to be a whole lot of people that like to pull out the ruler in the ePeen contest. Those people account for a lot of box sales/subs (depending on the game) and I'm willing to bet that many of them would simply not play a game where there wasn't an easy way to measure ePeen.
Being classless has nothing do with being skill based. One can exist without the other. My response was to make clear that levels is not the only way to measure ones characters's progression.
It's like any game which has numbers, including Ultima Online, it's just a measurement of power used by the game. When you realise how important scaling is to Guild Wars 2, levels make sense. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
(And I do wish people would stop fetishising the Eve system so much, it was a glorified spreadsheet but not a particularly fun game in any respect. I had more fun playing Anachronox, Fallout 2, Morrowind, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura, Mask of the Betrayer, and a whole slew of creative, clever, and absolutely enthralling RPGs which weren't afraid of their level system. EvE is just emptiness with the occasional rock and humdrum WoW combat in space, plus spreadsheets. It's not the big deal that people keep making it out to be.
Besides, the Ultima games (and Ultima Online) did progression via skills long, long before EvE, and they did it better.
(I really must try to remember how to properly capitalise 'EvE,' as it's not sensibly 'Eve' or an acronym like 'EVE,' it's 'EvE,' which seems to imply a non-existent versus. I dislike nonsensical names.)