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Raph's thinking on levels
Amaranthar
Member EpicPosts: 5,797
I went back to 2005 on Raph Koster's blog to find a post that has stuck with me for all these years. It was about the pros and cons of levels in MMORPGs (and maybe into the full spectrum of all MMOs).
In it ( https://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/22/do-levels-suck-part-ii/ )
Raph states the following:
Now, I agree wholeheartedly with this. To define it further, it's clear that Raph is talking about the power gaps that level based games use. That's the thing that hinders the "Massively" in multiplayer as far as game play among players as a whole.
I'm just wondering if others agree, and if a worthwhile discussion can be had about it. Can something besides (explicitly) levels with big power gaps make for a great game, yet still hits on the bullet points listed above?
In it ( https://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/22/do-levels-suck-part-ii/ )
Raph states the following:
So it is that the greatest weakness of levels — the fact that they prevent people from playing with one another — can also be their greatest strength; arguably more powerful than any of the Skinner Box sort of bits of psychology. Group identity is routinely cited by players as the most powerful retention factor in online games.
The question is whether one needs levels to accomplish this. Let’s consider the factors that seem to go into creating a success. Leaving aside the basic question of whether you have fun gameplay at a core systems level, the things that have been listed throughout this article are:
- feedback for achievements
- public status based on achievements
- gated communities that require special status to enter
- the lure of power based on significant achievements
- regular changes or variation in the challenges undertaken within a given playstyle
- cozy worlds created with players segmented based on when they entered the game and the rate at which they leveled; or self-selected by players
Now, I agree wholeheartedly with this. To define it further, it's clear that Raph is talking about the power gaps that level based games use. That's the thing that hinders the "Massively" in multiplayer as far as game play among players as a whole.
I'm just wondering if others agree, and if a worthwhile discussion can be had about it. Can something besides (explicitly) levels with big power gaps make for a great game, yet still hits on the bullet points listed above?
Once upon a time....
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Comments
If it wasn't levels, it would just be something else. Skills. Abilities. Whatever.
If everyone stayed the same without power increases to separate the old from the new, the accomplished from the unaccomplished, I would pretty much log in and find the nearest bar. Or more likely I would just not log in.
You want what you do to matter. You want your efforts to produce an observable distinction.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
A better form of progression would be to encourage the player to overcome many varied challenges throughout the world in exchange for exclusive abilities and modifiers/runewords for existing abilities. Skill hunting is fun. Skill hunting brings people together and drives them towards specific content. It just takes a lot more work on a developer's end.
Progression can be in levels, gear, unlocked content, in-game currency, reputation, skills, overcoming new difficulty, etc.
The nice thing about these progressions is that it gives people a goal to shoot for. This is what makes me want to log in. I need a goal to shoot for.
In PoE, it was figuring out a new build and the challenge of getting high as i can in HC. If i played in SC, there'd be no challenge and no goal worthwhile and i wouldn't play it.
In SC 2, it is improving and moving up the ladder.
In Entropia, my goal is to gain in skills to kill bigger monsters but in reality, Entropia is just a place holder game and the progression in the game is essentially muted by the way the game is.
Being level 10 in entropia or being level 100 in entropia is the same as walking into a casino with $20 to spend or $2,000. You are playing against the house and that never changes.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I had a similar idea for trade skills, with an example of a Stone Mason needing to go into ruins and study the remnants of arches in order to gain the ability to build them in Player Construction.
I suppose there are many ways to make discoveries in a truly adventurous world.
Once upon a time....
Progression is the backbone of RPGs. Because of this, you will have "power gaps." Players have differing amounts of time (or money, now) to play. Attempting to make them "all the same" defeats the purpose of playing, doesn't it?
With UO, I realize they just increased skills as you used them, but did "power gaps" still exist? Maybe not as great of a gulf, but still present?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Brad. Fuck off.
Marc. Fuck off.
Roberts. Fuck off x 10.
Raph, bring me my dreams.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Eso on the other hand has soft level and none of these levels change the monsters level because you start off at the monsters level.
Eso is the far superior model here because it has the best of both worlds . I think they are actually on to something with their achievement system where it might be completely possible to remove levels altogether and just focus on achievements as a means to improve your character.
Note: This is not to say quests to gain abilities are a bad thing, but they should be supplementary to a progression system, not a replacement. And the same can be said for gear.
I also really like the idea of a crafting system that tells a sort of story. Harvesting a specific ore in a specific cave could have a unique visual change on the blade. Perhaps that cave has a particularly high cobalt content in its metal, causing all of its metals to take on a bluish hue. Perhaps you want to modify the blade with etched runes in a particular language. And then imbue said runes with energy from a particular type of rare enemy to gain a particular energy color. A sort of quest-driven crafting system with the quest goals left entirely up to the player. Of course, this sort of thing is quite ambitious and likely unfeasible for now.
It was always about growing individual skill lines and spending the points you got from leveling, quest rewards, PvP and Skyshard exploration to get new and better skills from those lines you had partially or fully unlocked... even to the extent of using the same points to advance crafting perks you had unlocked there.
The only part of the game that still feels like traditional character-level locked advancement is ironically the Champion points end game which is itself a shameless copy of the Diablo 3 Paragon system. Consequently the more significant power gaps that exists in the game are all Champion point related as you would expect.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
As far as levels go, I don't view levels in Guild Wars 1 as progression, but rather a form of tutorial. The leveling process was so quick, and once that level 20 cap was hit, there was a huge world to play, entirely designed around you learning to play at that power level.
Guild Wars 1 was horizontal progression done right.