I'm seriously asking the question. As an RPG (and MMO) concept I'm still not sure - it's always bugged me - and I'm very interested to hear from you experienced and clever people what you think. I've re-written this post a couple of times and I'm still not sure what my own opinion is, so please help!
Character Progression
I think a good start is the concept of an RPG. A core concept and one of the main drivers for me is the feeling of heroic character progression. It's based in our RL desires that we enjoy improving at things. Of course we want our avatars to become more and more powerful heros. It works it fantasy novel after novel so of course it works in RPGs. Character progression is like a heroic version of real life which is what a role-playing game is all about, no?
Monster Progression
My following thought is: If our characters become more powerful then the monsters must too else things stop being fun quite fast. It's perhaps obvious logically, but also follows the popular story narrative of our heros eventually overcoming what initially seemed like an indestructable nemesis.
Groups and balance
My next thought is: for MMORPGs grouping is important. I'm sure most people here agree that if we aren't playing 'with' the others in an MMO, what is the point? Now, if we become more powerful and monsters become more powerful how do we organise thousands of people and monsters online simultaneously so that everyone is still having fun?
We match up characters with each other and with monsters of the same power. How do we ensure that power is well balanced? We have a rule set that ensures readily definable and equatable skill levels.
Levels
And there's that word which leads me to the thought that, for MMORPGs it occurs to me that 'levels' are fundamental to having a fun and challenging time.
Alternatives?
One way to have no levels would be to have no character progression. Give characters all the skills they will ever have up front. Balancing is even easier and you can go anywhere in the world any time and get balanced content. You could even still have 'tougher' monsters that require more characters or better tactics to kill.
Is that worth the lack of character progression though? I'd have to say no, not for me, it's fundamental, but what do you think?
Skills instead of levels? I think you're effectively using a similar mechanic, but much more complex to balance. Compare a level which you ensure is of commensurable 'power' or compare multiple skill 'levels' across multiple characters and thousands of monsters?
What's wrong with levels anyway?
I've always been disappointed when getting to 'end game' and much more enjoyed 'the journey'. I'm realising, though, that when you've been everywhere, the journey is over however else you'd prefer it. As long as you had chance to see all the content you wanted to see before you out-levelled it, then that's as good as it gets. (XP toggle anyone?)
So, as I've re-written this a couple of times I've come to solidify what I already knew. Concentrate on the journey. Smell the roses. All things end.
Expansions
So, raising the level cap and adding high-level content is great. Nothing to complain about anyway. Extra content at anything but level cap is going to miss most of your customers, no? But no company can keep producing content as fast as players play it can they?
Starting Over?
I've always had alts and re-played content, but it's never as good the Nth time... Is the progeny system the answer to all our MMORPG level concerns? (In conjunction with reasonably regular expansions, anyway). Is it going to be enticing enough to get players to start over? Will it actually 'change' the experience of the earlier levels enough to make it feel fresh enough? Will VR release low and mid level content to encourage re-starts?
I'm derailing my own post now with level-related thoughts so I'll stop and see what you all think :) Be gentle?...
disposalist said:Character Progression
I think a good start is the concept of an RPG. A core concept and one of the main drivers for me is the feeling of heroic character progression. It's based in our RL desires that we enjoy improving at things. Of course we want our avatars to become more and more powerful heros. It works it fantasy novel after novel so of course it works in RPGs. Character progression is like a heroic version of real life which is what a role-playing game is all about, no?
Monster Progression
My following thought is: If our characters become more powerful then the monsters must too else things stop being fun quite fast. It's perhaps obvious logically, but also follows the popular story narrative of our heros eventually overcoming what initially seemed like an indestructable nemesis.
http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/the-everquest-paradox/ is pretty profound re: character/monster progression.
disposalist said:Levels
And there's that word which leads me to the thought that, for MMORPGs it occurs to me that 'levels' are fundamental to having a fun and challenging time.
Alternatives?
One way to have no levels would be to have no character progression. Give characters all the skills they will ever have up front. Balancing is even easier and you can go anywhere in the world any time and get balanced content. You could even still have 'tougher' monsters that require more characters or better tactics to kill.
Is that worth the lack of character progression though? I'd have to say no, not for me, it's fundamental, but what do you think?
Skills instead of levels? I think you're effectively using a similar mechanic, but much more complex to balance. Compare a level which you ensure is of commensurable 'power' or compare multiple skill 'levels' across multiple characters and thousands of monsters?
What's wrong with levels anyway?
I've always been disappointed when getting to 'end game' and much more enjoyed 'the journey'. I'm realising, though, that when you've been everywhere, the journey is over however else you'd prefer it. As long as you had chance to see all the content you wanted to see before you out-levelled it, then that's as good as it gets. (XP toggle anyone?)
So, as I've re-written this a couple of times I've come to solidify what I already knew. Concentrate on the journey. Smell the roses. All things end.
I endeavor to refrain from speaking for others, but I believe people like levels because it gives them a demonstrable way to measure themselves against their past and against others. It's harder to conceptualize (maybe that's good I don't know) that I have 706 HP and 135 1hb and 90 conjuration vs "I'm level 26". A player might look back and recall fondly 'I spent levels 9-12 at the nybright sisters' vs, 'I spent some time at the nybright systers and the skills I used increased'.
I'm more attached to the level of my character than to the level of my character's skills.
Sure we could have a pure skill based system where combat and defense, hp and mana increased in a similar fashion to that of the traditional leveling system, but that takes time and resources away from the dev team to fix something that, imo, isn't broken. Levels vs a skill only based system just makes the increments of power increase further apart, but larger when they happen. In the end your relative power can be exactly the same.
disposalist said:So, as I've re-written this a couple of times I've come to solidify what I already knew. Concentrate on the journey. Smell the roses. All things end.
I'm 100% for the journey. That was by far the best part of the game in EQ.
I use words like fake and artificial frequently to describe mechanics that I think don't fit in this kind of game. You could make an argument that levels are that same thing, some arbitrary out of game placed framework that is artificial. I think this is why you'll see people on RP servers talk about their "age" instead of their level. In general, however, this is such an accepted concept that it doesn't bother me.
Without levels it would be hard to rank yourself against creatures to decide if you should engage or not. Maybe rather than levels just assign points to the gear you have and allow that to determine your rank against enemies. Be interesting that if you take all your gear off you're back to "level 1".
From a couple of days ago: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3154/xp-bar-it-s-not-you-it-s-me
"The journey" or progression is one of those foundational elements in an RPG or MMORPG. Accepting that as a truism, the question comes up of whether you can do away with levels and still keep progression. I think the answer is a firm no. It becomes way too problematic for no particularly good reason. You will always have skills, skill levels, or tiers in some way shape or form, so doing away with levels just for the sake of it means making things unnecessarily ambiguous and overcomplicated. Its a superficial change with no real benefit.
Even if you have no levels or skill levels - basically no numeric representation of character power - you still must create progressively harder content, and to accomplish it you need progressively better tools (weapons/armor) to achieve this. At that point, you then have numeric values, items that give +stats or new stronger abilities which do +damage.
If you go further and remove even those numbers and that progression, what you are left with is a purely "skill based" game which even if you incorporate RPG elements, I believe puts it on the opposite end of the spectrum from the traditional RPG.
Don't feel like reposing it all here, but I talked more about this in my post on the strategy/character progression versus mental skill versus physical skill aspects of RPGs here: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2771/spell-limits/view/page/3
Dullahan said:...Don't feel like reposing it all here, but I talked more about this in my post on the strategy/character progression versus mental skill versus physical skill aspects of RPGs here: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2771/spell-limits/view/page/3
Thanks dullahan for the comments and references. There's some great discussions in these forums - some obviously experienced and clever folks - the place almost needs a curator to organise it!
I do use the search, but if you search topics you often miss relevant comments and if you search content you get 1000 hits :)
Would love more input. I'm content with the logic of levels, but my gut tells me there might be another reasonable way :/ Maybe I'm just hungry.
I never liked the "remove levels" argument. It's simply swapping one measurement for another. In leu of measuring strength by character level, you're measuring it by skill point level, hp levels, mana levels, attack points, etc. Seems like the end result would be the same, but the means of measurement becomes more complicated.
I'm an advocate for keeping levels in place. The wolfshead article linked by Krixus is spot on for my tastes.