Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Is Linear Leveling Progression dead?
Rungar
Member RarePosts: 1,132
My opinion is that part of the death of mmos is the over reliance on levelling and levelling mechanisms instead of focusing on making the worlds...more worldly. To me levelling is a crutch to keep players interested when designs are very weak and shallow, and covers up the general lack of interactivity with the world.
are you sick of "levelling" yet? I am.
are you sick of "levelling" yet? I am.
.05 of a second to midnight
Post edited by Rungar on
and 1 other.
Comments
This is good for me, as a player, so that I can learn the game, at least for the first time, with my first character.
When I played ArcheAge, everything was just dropped in my lap in that first 10 min intro, and truth be told, that both extremely annoying and overwhelming, I like the idea of getting into the game, and just playing it.
So too much info-dump at the start, is a huge turn off. I liked the way GW2 did it, where you leveled your first toon, learned the game, and what have you, gained skills, abilities, traits, as you leveled, so that first run up, was both a good way to feel out the game, and all the various parts were given to you in small chucks, so you could process them individually, and play with this new feature for a few levels, until the next new feature hit you.
So in that regard leveling really was a great aspect of the game. Equally so, in GW2, unlike other games when you make max you get bottle necked into a small "End Game" with GW2, their level scaling allows players to fully branch out into the whole game at 80th. So the leveling, is ideally a training period to really learn the game.
In that nature, once you make 80th, you can start to earn Leveling Tomes, that you can use to level alts, because you don't want to go through the level process again. I personally have 8 characters all 80th, with 800+ levels in tomes on back up, so, leveling in GW2, after your first character is totally optional. They give away a free level 80 boost with HoT, so, you don't even need to level your 1st toon either anymore.
But it still serves that purpose of really giving you a feel for the game, that first time in, allowing the player to learn things in small chunks, which is a great system IMHO.
People who play RPG's are looking for Character Advancement.
Which is really how an MMO should be.. VAST.. so vast in fact, that you can't see it all without maxing your leveling, and realize that once you make it to max level, that is when the game really starts.
and GW2, really does a great job to embrace that feeling. As opposed to trying to squash everything, it makes that first time up a fun, and often easy, journey to experience the game world, with level scaling going only down, the world expands as you level, unlike other MMO's where the world shrinks as you level.
I really enjoyed the way monster player progression worked in LoTRO. It was my favorite feature of the game and the only PvP I ever really sunk substantial time into. It was great to be able to start a monster and jump right into playing with everyone. You got progression that felt meaningful(mostly) as you ranked up, yet some arbitrary number wasn't a gatekeeper to group content.
Some people don't get that RPGs are about growing a character or a build. Whether you do it with character levels or skill unlock and growth it's irrelevant.
Also, ESO is way ahead of you. They do still have character levels but with full level scaling that is more legacy than anything else. ESO is all about unlocking skills and leveling those skills by using them. It's been that way actually since long before level scaling. You have dozens of skill lines to choose from and level independent of each other. Only one of those lines, and a very minor one with skills hardly anyone bothers to use (EDIT: I was conflating the "Soul" line which is a main quest based skill line with the Racial Passives - it's only the racial passives that follow your character level), depends on your character level. They did that 7 years ago
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Every Competition has Levels that you work through, tiers, and the like.
Local, Regional, State, National, International, Professional, Etc.
And lets be honest, a lot of people never make it past Local.
This is why, (Under normal circumstances) You aren't going to sit and play against a grand master of chess as your first opponent, entering the chess league.
You do not make your first Boxing debut against the Heavy Weight Champion of the World.
You're first football game is not going to be played against NFL Pro's.
And truth be told, in real life, you also have hard caps on what your body will get to.
There are many people that play Football in Highschool that never make the College Teams, they simply lack the determination and genetics, to be a top level football player.
And of those that make it to College Football, do not make the Pros, and try as they might, they just hit a cap where they simply aren't going to get any better, and for many of them, that ends up not good enough to get into those top positions.
So hard reality check.. no one really wants reality in their Video game.
Levels are an easy way to chart progress that players can grasp and know when they are ready to face their next higher up challenge, which is why they are used.
Sure, an MMO could build a vastly complex system of skill development, and thousands of behind the scenes equations going on, from physical attributes, to skill, to balance, to weather temperature, to a lot of other things, to give you the feel of what a real simulation would be, where there was invisible progress gained from repeated use of a weapon, or armor, and the like, but, how do you know when you are ready to face a bear?
In real life, you don't. You really have very little to no idea what the bear can do to you, and when the fight starts, you either live and drive the bear off or kill it, or the Bear mauls you, and you either escape to live another day with the scars and physical damage that will get calculated into your ability to fight in the future, or you die and the game is over.
Seems harsh, and I bet, most players don't want that anyway.
On top of that, players want to fight dragons, ride unicorns, and cast fireballs, So realism can suck it..
so a great many mmo people are also crafters so its a better match in my opinion to use these environmental ways to improve your character rather than just kill everything.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I hate to bring this game back up, the Eternal Crusade, has a solid leveling system for a PvP Game, where as you leveled, you gained access to wargear, and while this gave you a slight advantage to people below your level, anyone and everyone on that battle field was a real threat. a 1st level character could kill a max level character, while the max level character had some advantages to access to stronger weapons and wargear, they both had the same points to spend on their loadout.
Ideally this was a nice way to work with levels in a PvP Game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
HAH! I shaved my hair the last time that happened! LOL
I do like levels. I play RPGs to take a character from a shoe shine boy to Underdog!
- 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
In starcraft 2, the more you play, the better you get, the higher your rank is. The rank or level is an achievement.
In PoE, the farther you get without dying is the goal, and your level is an achievement as you can only make 1 mistake. That ia hardcore mode.
Regular mmos often have leveling where to level up is just a matter of tedium and not challenging nor does it really unlock anything.
I realized in WoW in 2004, there was no point to play the game as leveling or raiding just had you doing same shit over and over again.
Instead of levels, i'd have achievements, you improve your char by achieving stuff.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
For years we bought games,paid one price and that was the end of spending.Then came along the subscription model that was NEVER warranted.
Then when competition rose because of MANY new studios they tried another deceptive gimmick called free to play.
Role playing games should have plausible realistic worlds,moving living npc's and they SHOULD be acting liek a real person would and not just standing there with a non believable marker over it's head waiting to trigger a quest.
So the worlds are super crap,the npc's are crap,there is VERY little interaction and the MMO aspect is even ruined with so much instancing.
The MMO part is also made laughable because outside party members cannot interactt,so much for the MMO claims.FFXI was the one game that DID allow interaction outside the group but of course not inside the crappy instances.
So basically to sum it up,mmorpg's have done NOTHING to reinforce the MMO or the rpg,they are instead just leveling treadmills with some simple carrots to chase.
low budget survival games are better at being an RPG than the games claiming to be mmorpg's.So it is not the leveling it is the entire genre that is DEAD...stagnant...going nowhere.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am very excited about new places I can go to with my new level. The level is like a door that opens up to a new area I could not go to before. That is exciting for me. If the whole game is open to me and there are no barriers I would not be interested in exploring because I can go everywhere. I am more comfortable with barriers and limits. Levels still give me the notion that my character is earning something and I need to see that progress for me to enjoy playing a game. I guess I am old school Everquest true and true.
Perhaps open games are just too open for me and I am just one of those people who enjoy levelling. I have a very mundane approach to the world because for me the world has to become bigger as I level higher and I need to hold on to a figure or number to help me believe I am climbing up and making progress. I am also like that in real life.
I worked in areas most people find boring. I found great comfort in areas that were certain like numbers and abstract stuff boggles me. Even in university I scored the worst in subjects like philosophy and jurisprudence because those were abstract things to me. Give me contract, taxation, banking, land law which is my absolute favourite codified things that make sense to me so I approach gaming the same way. It is perhaps quite sad that I am limited in this way but I am comforted with this type of progression.