Quote:Original post by xevoxe Levels are a form of distinction that people crave and fiend for. This is especially true for the hardcore gamer. The hardcore gamer lives through distinction by examining the game rules and developing the best character possible. The end result though could be a very linear progression with small deviations because the hardcore gamer will go with what is proven. They will attempt to take the current trend and make it better by increasing intelligence by one point instead of constitution, for example.
That's not true (the part in Italics) with decent systems, with moderate balancing. I recommend Fallout. Fans of that game have played through it about 15 times, each of those times using a different type of character. Try using a character with int < 3. You can't fully speak, so you have to use pure action rather than words to advance the game. Or if you go with charisma & int maxed out, you can nearly avoid all forms of action, and talk your way out of anything.
Quote:Original post by xevoxe
Quote: Quote: Original post by FunkymunkySo what would be the benefits of a non level-based system? 1) Realism
First, I have to disagree with this statement. Our society is based on level distinctions.
I think MatrixCubed (not Funkymunky) was referring to linear progressive level systems. In the real world, you're not restricted to +4 str & +2 agi when reaching level 2. You could have reached that level of progression through any type of advancement. Morrowind's leveling system is much more realistic than Final Fantasy.
Although, personally, I don't think realism plays a very important role in leveling systems. When I'm playing, I don't care at all about how realistic a leveling system works. But a linear progression system is too simple for me.
I like systems that are detailed but easily discernable. Systems that make the rest of the game more fun, but at the same time, the game shouldn't need them to be fun. And from my experience, most bad and so-so RPGs failed to realize that the game minus the leveling still needs to be fun, and used their leveling system like a big duck-tape bandaid. And this, I believe, is where 'grinding' first became a negative gaming term.
Quote:That's not true (the part in Italics) with decent systems, with moderate balancing. I recommend Fallout. Fans of that game have played through it about 15 times, each of those times using a different type of character.
I do not deny every system will fall into this realm; which is why I said it could be the result of the system. I must beg to differ on how easy you make it sound to avoid this.
Quote:In the real world, you're not restricted to +4 str & +2 agi when reaching level 2.
You are and you are not. Which is why I feel that current level systems are backwards. In the real world the +4 str and +2 agi is what restricts you from obtaining level 3 in those things that deal with those aspects of life. Which is why I say current systems are restrictive and thus inherently change the focus of advancement from character action to player reaction.
Quote:But a linear progression system is too simple for me.
This is just all about the player type that a game is focus towards. Granted you may dislike the system, but it doesn't make it a bad one.
The concept of a "Role-Playing Game" as we know it was derived originally from table-top war games in the same spirit as Warhammer by Games Workshop. Basically, anachronistic folk took their little tin soldiers off the epic battlefield and threw them into dungeons reminiscent of the Mines of Moria or something. Instead of armies, they had small companies of explorers.
When handling bajillions of little tin soldiers, it was necessary to have quick-and-dirty representations of their general-purpose effectiveness on the battlefield. When handling a single such character at a time, just saying he was a "level 1" soldier was rather boring.
So beyond just the "level" of a character, RPG's incorporated other, more particular stats that would be applicable in the adventuring rather than the military sense.
It's stuck ever since.
The problem is that most RPG designers today have accepted the "level" as not just a representation of one's combat effectiveness, but as a natural force in the universe as implicitly tied to reality as gravity and electromagnetism.
Levels are a convenience invented by game designers as a means of representing how likely one character is to kill another. That is _LIKELIHOOD_ --- we're not dealing with absolutes. It should be possible (though less likely) for a level 1 character to be able to kill a level 3 character.
But, of course, people built up too many expectations for what, precisely, a "level" means and before long, the level was the center of everyone's existence. Your "level" determined how likely you were at wooing a barmaid in spite of the fact that you'd spent your entire existence smashing the heads of goblins. Who knows -- maybe all barmaids have a fetish for goblin viscera.
As a natural reaction to the way some designers have constructed the entirety of their consciousness around the "level" concept, some people think that levels are implicitly evil or unrealistic. This is not necessarily true. As I've said before, the level is supposed to be a means of representing what a character is capable of killing. Nothing more. It is not meant to be the grand apex of all the gameplay concepts --- and throwing it out entirely is not solving the problem; it's just becoming annoyed with symptoms of the real problem.
The way to correct the problem is simple: Use a character's "level" as a means of representing something pertinent to the gameplay. In most MMORPG's, a character's level is a sense of tenure: Reward for those who've sunk enough money into their accounts that the designers want them to feel rewarded. In the historic (I'm talking about pre-1980's) table-top strategic war games, it was a means of representing a soldier's aptitude at killing things and not being killed. In D&D, it's a perverse meta-fetish of analogies carried beyond their applicability and must be punished with every fiber of good game design left in our species.
When designing your game, I would encourage you to ask yourself the following questions: - Do my characters do anything other than killing? - If so, what other aspects of gameplay are there (theivery, diplomacy, a craft skill of some kind) - If so, how do they relate back to the character's ability to kill? (Thieves can "backstab," diplomats can "negotiate" out of a fight, a master swordsmith can craft the ultimate weapon of destructy-doom)
If you understand the relationship that every skill has to killing, you are perfectly capable of adequately representing a character's "level" as a means of measuring how many basic monsters a character is likely to kill before being overwhelmed.
However, if you, like many game designers, implement avanues of gameplay completely unrelated to the core mechanic of choppin' off heads and yet still incist on using the "level-centric" RPG system design, chances are you need to rethink your design strategy.
To recap, levels are good at describing very specific things -- but they must be measurable inside the context of gameplay economics and mechanics. The problem with levels is not that they exist or are unrealistic but that most deisgners don't think about what a "level" actually means. Saying "My character is level 10" is like saying "I got eight billion points in Blastytron 2000 last night!" That doesn't mean anything unless people know exactly what those points represent, how hard they are to come by, and what the average maximum is in the first place.
So there it is. Ishepck's rant about "levels" for the day.
-----------------"Building a game is the fine art of crafting an elegant, sophisticated machine and then carefully calculating exactly how to throw explosive, tar-covered wrenches into the machine to botch-up the works."http://www.ishpeck.net/
Quote:That's not true (the part in Italics) with decent systems, with moderate balancing. I recommend Fallout. Fans of that game have played through it about 15 times, each of those times using a different type of character.
I do not deny every system will fall into this realm; which is why I said it could be the result of the system. I must beg to differ on how easy you make it sound to avoid this.
That's why I said with decent balancing.
You need to give players more choices when it comes to solving problems. It's not an easy solution, but it is a simple one. The advantage is that your game, with more choices to solve problems, becomes a lot more interesting in the process.
Quote:
Quote:In the real world, you're not restricted to +4 str & +2 agi when reaching level 2.
You are and you are not. Which is why I feel that current level systems are backwards. In the real world the +4 str and +2 agi is what restricts you from obtaining level 3 in those things that deal with those aspects of life. Which is why I say current systems are restrictive and thus inherently change the focus of advancement from character action to player reaction.
If the level system is reversed as you suggest, it would become less about accomplishment, and more about acknowledgement & representation. I've always thought this is what should be done. The player would reach level 4 because he has become *that good*. Other players or AI can still acknowledge his abilities on that generic level scale, or they can look at his individual abilities for detail. But the fact that he's a "level 5 warrior" would be just for reference; level 5 wouldn't bring any new abilities when it is reached.
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Quote:But a linear progression system is too simple for me.
This is just all about the player type that a game is focus towards. Granted you may dislike the system, but it doesn't make it a bad one.
I thought I made that extremely clear by the 'me'. Just for the record, all of my statements, in all of my posts, are on a personal as-the-player just-me level. I need to put that into my signature.
As KGodwin stated, the old school Ultima Online was probably the closest to what you are looking for. And Unlike Morrowind, and other skill based games such as it, while you are capped at the max skill, and thought, "Hey, I screwed up, why did I choose taxidermy over swords as my main skill?", you could always learn the new skill, while your old skill would lower.
There were no levels outside the skill & attribute levels. You didn't fight 800 rats with a sword, and suddenly notice you're 3x the magician you were 4 hours ago. You might have been better with a sword, you might even be stronger, but that was it. If you wanted to learn magic, you needed to practice magic. If you wanted to become stronger, you needed to use skills that used strength. Smarter, use skills that require intelligence.
Also, even if you were a grandmaster swordsman, that didn't mean you could kill a neophyte swordsman. Granted, he would miss more than you. But if he was stronger than you, and had more hp, and was faster, he could win. Or if he had a way to heal himself, and you didn't.
In a way, I was disappointed with UO. I admit, I loved it when it came out (and was probably a UO addict). But I didn't like what it became. And I had always thought that the original engine, and graphics, and sound, would have made an awesome single player experience. All they needed to do was add some AI and a story.
A lot of single player RPG's and MMO's from the last few years are classless; in fact, I think on PCs, classless outnumbers classed. For example: Elder Scrolls (Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, Oblivion), Ultima (5? through 9, Online), Fallout (1, 2, Tactics), Vampire (Redemption, Bloodlines), Deus Ex (1 & 2), Arcanum, Arx Fatalis, and Eve Online, to name a few.
The only big-name classed RPGs still around are the Japan Console RPG's (Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, both of which include a lot of customizability in their more recent class incarnations), the D&D/D20 games (D&D Online, NWN, KotoR), World of Warcraft, and Everquest.
[Edited by - makeshiftwings on October 24, 2006 6:14:35 PM]
Level-based RPGs exists because levels give players a sense of progression, a 'reward' for their effort in game (getting visibly stronger) and a way to gauge your character's power against other characters in the game (can I attack that group of monsters and survive?).
I think the main problem with level and classes in a RPG is the way it limits character development. Warriors should always tank, Priests must heal are what happened alot in most level based RPG.
Another problem is class limitation, you will see different 'builds' of certain classes (holy priests, shadow priests) I would much prefer the ability to build my character the way I wanted.
A good example of class less RPG will be Fallout, no classes just skill and stat based. You can make your character into the best sniper or the best merchant in the game, but even Fallout has a level system.
in "elder scrolls 4", there are levels. but, every skill has a level.
besides this, your overall level increases when a main skill level increases.
but i think, levels dont matter in oblivion, since all monsters get stronger when you reach a new level. so you could level a lot. but what for ? at some time, the enemys are harder because your equipment got relatively weak. so youll spend the money you earned. its an endless circle.
i was bored very soon, they killed the "leveling" out of the game. and there werent many things that were really fun to do. the fun things were the quests, exploring the world and being a vampire.
