So, one problem I have with MMOs is how they're always so closely tied to levels. You need to level up, you need to be a certain level to do a quest/dungeon, you need a certain level to use items/skills and so on. Everything in these games boils down to a single number, and the entire purpose of these games is to increase this number (so you can unlock the privilege of increasing it more).
I know this is done for a good reason. It allows you to control how people play. It gives a set, and easy to understand requirement to play a specific part of the game. (You need to be level 50 to kill the dragon and so on)
Basically, it makes the game easy to work with.
But the entire concept of leveling up just bothers me. When I play a MMO, I look at my level and exp bar more than anything else in the game and I suspect a lot of other people do too. Everytime I kill something or complete a quest, I look at how much experience it gave me and work out how much more I need to do to level up and so on.
It detracts from the game, and it makes me feel like I'm not actually playing the game as intended, just looking at numbers raise.
So, realizing it'd be very difficult to remove leveling up, how would you feel if instead a game just didn't tell you what level you were? (And didn't show experience either)
The game would still use experience and leveling up, but you wouldn't see a big sign saying you're level 10 with 200 exp (which is 20% of the way to level 11) and so on.
Obviously, some changes would need to be made to accommodate for this, but it's much less significant than entirely removing leveling up and trying to design a game based purely on player skill. (For example, in WoW the difference between someone level 1 and maximum level is something like 10,000,000% if not more, with this system to make leveling up less obvious you might get 2% stronger per level up).
So, could you and would you play an online RPG where the entire leveling progress was hidden from you? You would never know your true level or strength, just how comparatively strong you are compared to other players.
ID:1469182
 Jan 12 2014, 6:51 am
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Jan 12 2014, 7:08 am
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Zagros5000
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There are tons of game that don't use level systems no idea what you're talking about if you think this is an original let alone a GOOD idea for a games progression system
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Name 5 MMORPGs that don't use any form of level progression.
Also, you missed the point entirely. I was not suggesting removing level progression, I was suggesting hiding it to shift focus away from it and onto other parts of the games. | |
The Magic Man wrote:
Name 5 MMORPGs that don't use any form of level progression. Wurm Online Ultima Online Darkfall Online Mortal Online Runescape These games all use indirect leveling through skills, rather than central progression. I think hiding the level system isn't a solution to the core gameplay concerns that this issue causes. Ultimately, I think an MMORPG without a leveling system can be handled successfully through abstract progression using either quest progression or items/equipment acquisition. The player doesn't necessarily have to get stronger for the player to progress, instead either equipment acquired can boost stats/resistances, or consumable/cooldown based items could be used to offer new mechanics the player has to manage in order to overcome new types of enemies. | |
Or the mmo could focus on strategy. You don't have to worry about the idea of progressing the players and or their equipment. Not quite but- e.g. TCG (yugioh HEX ect)
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Those games you listed all have level progression.
Maybe I should be more specific, since I am using "levels" as an a catch all term. Name me a single MMORPG where your progress is not tracked by a number you can increase through specific actions. Whether this is a level and experience, stats/skills that can be individually raised, stronger/better equipment and so on. Regardless of what system these games implement, at the end of the game you have a number that represents your overall power, and your focus is to raise this number. As far as I can see, the only way to remove this from a game, is by entirely changing the game and making it rely entirely on the players skill. For example, giving it gameplay like a Devil May Cry game (where your skill is what is important, and different weapons simply give you different methods to attack rather than stronger attacks). This naturally is not easy to do, it's actually down right hard as hell (especially in 2D). So what I am suggesting is, first hide player progress as far as numbers go (but it still exists). And secondly to ramp down how much a person changes between each level. This would change the game from "man, I want to go kill dragons, but I'm only level 40 and I need to be level 50 to kill them, time to grind 10 levels" and it would become "i wonder if i'm strong enough to kill dragons yet, maybe i should go and try but it could be hard so maybe i better prepare and find other people first or at least ask for advice from an experienced player". | |
Strategy is another form of player skill. You don't need leveling up or numbers to represent a players power when strategy is involved.
A smart player should always be able to beat a dumb player, because he is better at the game. Not because his numbers are bigger. | |
If you want smart player beats dumb player scenario you can make all skills available to all players right away. No progression required.
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You're still missing the point.
I realize that making a game that relies purely on player skill is hard. I know it requires an entirely different way of planning and designing the entire game. Which is why I'm not doing this. Instead I am trying to shift focus away from things like "I need to level up" and "i have to get stronger to carry on", and focus it more on things like "i want to explore" or "i want to go do something in this place" and so on. But to me (and I'm sure a lot of other people), when I play a game and it has a big experience bar and I'm told I get experience for killing stuff or doing a quest and I need to be a certain level to do things, my only focus is on leveling up. | |
So... An MMORPG without any semblance of progression at all?
Yeah, won't work. It's absolutely integral to the work/reward cycle, which is what gives a game its staying power. What you are describing is a sandbox, not an MMORPG. | |
The game will have progress, but the point is focus is not placed on this progress and instead of being restricted by this, you're encouraged to try and do what you want to do.
When I log into a MMO right now, I'm told "your progress is 10 out of 100, to do the next quest please raise your progress to 11". I don't like this. It makes me focus too much on progressing and not enough on just enjoying the game. For example, in most MMOs, when I take a quest to kill a dragon. To me this quest is a new item and 20% exp towards my next level up. I mean, I'm killing a damned flying, fire breathing massive dragon, and to me all this represents is increasing a number. What the hell is up with that? Why does the reward have to be increasing a number? Why can't I just have fun fighting this dragon and enjoying the experience? It's similar to a sand box in many ways actually. Progress exists, it's just neither forced in your face constantly, the main focus nor is it as obvious to the player. | |
The Magic Man wrote:
I realize that making a game that relies purely on player skill is hard. I know it requires an entirely different way of planning and designing the entire game. That doesn't sound terribly hard to me. You wouldn't have to care very much about balance. You would just make enemies gradually more challenging. Actually, hiding the numbers and pretending that levels don't exist doesn't really solve the problem. Do you know what your players would do after playing long enough? They would time out the attacks, in milliseconds, and compare them with other players through chat. If your game got popular enough, there would even be unofficial websites describing the experience to speed correlation. Over time, the whole leveling system would be reverse engineered, and everyone would realize that your game is just another level-based RPG in disguise. Basically, it just won't be enough to simply hide the numbers. If they have any noticeable effect on the gameplay, players will figure it out sooner or later. They would do it just because of the mystery and suspicion. Even if they didn't, many would still hang out in the same area, repeatedly fighting the same monsters over and over, just like they would when leveling in any other RPG. They may not see the actual numbers, but they will still notice that things are getting much easier for them. If you want a game without levels, then design it that way, but if your game gives players any kind of incremental increase in power, then you might as well just show all of the numbers. | |
A player is always limited by something. Levels,gear, area progresson,or story. Its just controlling the game flow. only none level based would be gear related in my opinion.
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Well, its not very 'realistic', but I sort of like Hedgerow Hall's method of dealing with this. Your 'level' progress is simply determined by time. Doesn't matter what you're doing, at the end of a progressively increasing period of time, you get some points to apply to whatever skills you want. Players get to do whatever they enjoy doing in game (roleplaying, crafting, exploring, gathering better equipment, etc.), but still increase their skills/level. You didn't have to worry about grinding out a million slimes, just to get to the next level of killing field. (Well, there was no killing, just lots of getting knocked unconscious...)
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Making games that rely purely on player skill is actually insanely hard. A large part of it is making enemies more challenging.
In a level based game, you just give them more hp or damage. In a skill based game, if you do this, eventually you get to the point where enemies kill you in 1 hit, how do you make the next enemy harder after this? Instead of balancing a bunch of numbers, you have to balance a bunch of AIs. If you ask me it's much harder to design and balance a lot of AIs than it is to balance a lot of numbers. | |
I don't think the OP wants to have any kind of "leveling" or "skilling". You could just learn the skill once and be done with it. Instead of worrying about investing points, you would be looking to discover a new skill somewhere else. This also allows for a much larger number of skills. A game with that much freedom would be amazing.
If you think about it, you can define progress in many different ways. It just depends on how your game plays out. You could actually shift the focus away from combat in general, and instead make the players worry about their situation. A classic example is where the player is trapped in an area and can't leave until all enemies are defeated. You could make it so that all enemies in your game are "special" enemies. For example, there might be only one weapon in the game that can destroy a certain enemy. Don't fill your game with stupid pathetic pawns and a few bosses. Give every single enemy the attributes of a "boss", minus the power and/or size. Also, you could make it so that most of the quests the players complete are not really "quests" at all, but are simply randomly generated bad situations, where they are at the wrong place at the wrong time. Want to get your next quest? Well, you will just have to think about making it there first! | |
Skills in this game are not straight upgrades from each other. You don't learn fireball to deal 100 damage, then big fireball to deal 200. Every skill is situational and learning more doesn't make you stronger, it just allows you to play effectively in different situations.
Also, combat isn't going to be the only focus in this game, but at the end of the day it is a large part of the game and needs to be well designed. And finally, I just don't want numbers to be how progress is measured. You are not level 10 with 50 strength, you just have average strength. That other person isn't level 99 with 900 strength, he is herculean. That sword doesn't give you 50 more damage, it's just effective against flesh but less against armor, while this mace is more effective vs armor but slower. That spell doesn't deal 1000 damage, it burns enemies, while this other spell can incinerate them. You get the idea? Technically the game has numbers, it can't work without them. But I don't want players to sit there focusing on the numbers (with one or two exceptions, like how much life they have left), I want them to focus on playing the game and figure out for themselves what does and doesn't work best in a situation. | |
I sounds like you just want stats or attributes to be thought of in more human terms, instead of a bunch of measured numbers. I can see the value in that, but I doubt it will change the overall gameplay as much as you think it would. Instead of leveling to 99, players will just "level" to herculean or whatever. The most that it would ever do is make players slightly less conscious about their stats.
I seem to be on a different page here though. You don't have to give monsters stronger attacks or more advanced AI algorithms, just to make them more challenging. You can have targeted damage, where different sides of an enemy are more vulnerable, or maybe they slow down every so often. To make them more powerful, you can simply reduce these weaknesses. You can get all different combinations of monsters with the same algorithm, just by entering in a different set of numbers. Don't just increase the attack. Increase the defense. Increase the speed and reaction time. The idea here is to give the weaker monsters as many flaws as you can think of, and gradually reduce those as they get more challenging. You should be able to take the same AI system, and make it range from completely broken to terminator level. | |
Multiverse7 wrote:
The most that it would ever do is make players slightly less conscious about their stats. This is exactly what I am aiming for. I want players to focus less on their stats, and more on playing the game. But what I see in most MMORPGs is players focus entirely on their stats, and every single thing they do is to increase their stats. | |