There's nothing inherently wrong with level-ups, but we've been going at them the wrong way. You can and should get constantly better with your chosen fighting style, but spamming Overhead Chop seventeen thousand times isn't going to spontaneously teach you the ins and outs of Renaissance-era fencing. All you need is one or two instances of the proper insight to learn a new move. If you're fighting a guy and you circle your blade up to catch his, then you lower it on top of his sword and stab him in the throat, congratulations! You've just executed a basic bind-six. Now make the motion smaller, less obvious to the opponent and less time to perform. A tiny little circle the size of an orange should be enough to perform it, so you don't need to draw one around your entire opponent. Keep this up and if anybody is foolish enough to point a sword at you, you'll swoop in over the top of their blade and stick them in an instant.

Until you meet people familiar with the move, anyway -- capable of countering it.

Similarly, this notion that you amass more and more health is just ridiculous, as is the idea that you need to up your strength to kill somebody with a sword. Having more muscle may pad you against blunt force, which works nicely for fisticuffs, but a mace is still going to break your skull. Being strong does help when using a sword, but only so that your arm doesn't get tired performing the parries. Cutting a person open ain't hard; getting the chance to try it is. You only really need one direct hit, and what keeps you alive is your reflex, your ability to predict the following attacks based on your opponent's position -- "From here, it'd be easiest for them to _____." That's what makes a good fighter, not having 5000 more HP.

There is no way in hell you are going to kill a demon with normal human abilities. Contrary to popular belief, humans are just fucked. The way that humans fought demons was being super hero strong, or just having fuckloads of people die. Also heroes in literature were more durable than regular people, aka more HP. Or magic. But lots of people hate being mages.

There is no way in hell you are going to kill a demon with normal human abilities. Contrary to popular belief, humans are just fucked. The way that humans fought demons was being super hero strong, or just having fuckloads of people die. Also heroes in literature were more durable than regular people, aka more HP. Or magic. But lots of people hate being mages.

*Is Mage and Loving It*

It's kinda like D&D, adventurers are already exceptional members of the population. Characters in a level-less game would be as well. They just wouldn't become gods as the game went on.

It's kinda like D&D, adventurers are already exceptional members of the population. Characters in a level-less game would be as well. They just wouldn't become gods as the game went on.

Agreed. A "typical Joe" in 99% of the games I've played would be dead within 5 minutes. But exceptional doesn't necessarily mean "exceptional AND improving".

The real question is, should combat be realistic? Is actual swordfighting really all that fun? Hitting 17000 monsters to level up is just like real life sword fighting. Except in real life you are hitting a dummy all those times when you are just learning, which is way more boring than fighting a monster. In real life becoming skilled takes thousands and thousands of hours, so taking 50 hours to reach the sword skill cap seems like a pretty silly complaint.

The real question is, should combat be realistic? Is actual swordfighting really all that fun? Hitting 17000 monsters to level up is just like real life sword fighting. Except in real life you are hitting a dummy all those times when you are just learning, which is way more boring than fighting a monster. In real life becoming skilled takes thousands and thousands of hours, so taking 50 hours to reach the sword skill cap seems like a pretty silly complaint.

I'm still talking abstract combat. This build's standard attack does 3d6+18 dmg; Another maybe does a little less, but with less randomness. So which one do you take? I'm saying the characters in a level-less game aren't going to improve on their already challenge-adequate skills

Why not base damage on actual momentum, speed, area of impact, etc. Or to simplify, if the attack animation loop is 30 frames long and the point of ideal impact is frame 20 then write code that says that if the collision occurs on frame 20 the hit is max damage but if the collision occurs sooner or later the damage is less. This builds a skill system the player has to master (distance from the enemy). Other scripts could be added to this like if collision occurs sooner then frame 10, zero damage is done but the enemy is pushed back with x amount of force. Or if collision occurs later then frame 20, play the characters "swung_too_damn_hard" animation (bet you want to use my naming conventions now dontcha?) and enable rag doll arms.

Skills should increase through use and decrease from excessive neglect, this should only be visible in action. The other variables that could effect this (say a sword swing skill) would be strength, confidence/moral, grip? and maybe time spent around said skill specifically said skill being used. I think its better to track this data and reward the player with a changing character over time but it should change the gameplay visuals not the HUD or menu character info.

The real question is, should combat be realistic? Is actual swordfighting really all that fun? Hitting 17000 monsters to level up is just like real life sword fighting. Except in real life you are hitting a dummy all those times when you are just learning, which is way more boring than fighting a monster.

Eh, not so much xD It's more 'today, you will learn such and such move' and you spar with a friend to get a feel for it. 'Today you will practice beating their weapon aside,' 'today, you will practice catching their wrist mid-swing,' etc. There's actually very little to learn from smacking an inanimate object, aside from proper striking form.

Doing one thing 17k times will just teach you how to do one thing, no matter what it is. To learn new moves, you have to actually try new moves. Legend of Legaia is a good example: your 'fight' command consisted of up, down, left, and right inputs, and normally, you'd just punch or kick an enemy there. But if you strung the proper directions together, you'd activate a special attack like slamming your elbow or heel into their skull. You could find these combos totally by accident in-battle, or you could have them taught to you.

Why not base damage on actual momentum, speed, area of impact, etc. Or to simplify, if the attack animation loop is 30 frames long and the point of ideal impact is frame 20 then write code that says that if the collision occurs on frame 20 the hit is max damage but if the collision occurs sooner or later the damage is less. This builds a skill system the player has to master (distance from the enemy). Other scripts could be added to this like if collision occurs sooner then frame 10, zero damage is done but the enemy is pushed back with x amount of force. Or if collision occurs later then frame 20, play the characters "swung_too_damn_hard" animation (bet you want to use my naming conventions now dontcha?) and enable rag doll arms.

This is interesting, but I'm trying to avoid action/twitch elements. There is a sort of leveling up you do with twitch games as you get familiar with them. I guess I'm saying the game I'm thinking about, the leveling up would be learning how best to leverage your strengths in a situation. If you fail, you try another strategy. The leveling up is in the player's tactical sense of how to fight, given the abstract interface.

To the op,

Diablo 3 tried to do this, The levelling up system was of no real consequence. You put no points in(they are automatically added), and the points you do gain are minuscule in the grand scheme of things. The skills were locked initially, but all the skills open up at about level 30(??) if I remember correctly, it was just meant to ease the person into the game, the ultimate aim was to have all skills unlocked as early as possible to allow the player to choose any spell/skill at any time.

The gameplay was fun (initially), but the problem happens to be a real quick death of the rpg. There was no feeling of progression and character building.The character building/progression part of it was done as a part of the itemization. This might have been a good idea initially, but in combination with the skill system it caused was a complete feeling of apathy towards your character. you did not feel ownership, no feeling of uniqueness, and felt your character was basically useless...which he was once all the items were removed, in a rpg that isnt exactly a good thing. There is no reason to play though again with the same class because you have already seen eveything, and could just change skills on the first character.