Am I the only one who thinks conventional "leveling up" is idiotic, boring, tedious, and unoriginal?
Leveling up comes from the archaic FIRST RPGs ever, the only reason they used it is because they didnt have the power to put something better in. Now we do. Yet this outdated and boring system is still in use. Not to mention over complicated for what it does. Even World of Warcraft uses this outdated system.
I have an idea, this is what I use in all of my games. Its simpler and more fun and realistic. Depending on what action you use certain stats of your character increase. For instance:
You just attacked someone? Strength up
You were just hurt by something? Endurance up
You use techniques based on speed or you run around a lot? Speed up
You use a lot of energy consuming or magic abilities? Energy up.
The energy ability you used was offensive? Energy Force up
You were just hit by a magic or energy attack and it did some damage? Energy Resistance up
Etcetera... Thats merely one facet I could make an example out of. But I dont want this post to get too long.
ID:152117
 Jan 31 2008, 11:37 pm
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Dragonn wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks conventional "leveling up" is idiotic, boring, tedious, and unoriginal? The concept of leveling up comes to us mostly from Dungeons & Dragons and possibly its dim precursors, in which a character gains ability over time, becoming more of a force to be reckoned with and leading up to epic battles. It's a concept that is hard to balance in many different situations, but it is what it is. Unfortunately, what you've just suggested is really no different whatsoever. A system that gives you increases in skills, stats, what have you is the exact same thing as leveling up. This is a failure of imagination, and it's not unique on your part. Lots of people have looked at level systems in the past and declared them unfit, then come up with something totally equivalent and just as unbalanced. It's a hard trap to escape from, because leveling up is the simplest way to represent a character's development from start to finish in a game. It's not really the suckiest idea ever; it just turns out to be really really easy to screw up in implementation. It's also designed for a limited span of levels, and it's especially for games that have some kind of finish or where a character can be lost for good. Lummox JR | |
Actually there is some truth to what he said. If you take a look at games like Ogre Island they have a unique, but very cool way of leveling. Basically they add 0.005 (or something like that) points to your experience, whatever you do. If you're collecting resources, you start with a 50% chance of collecting, and if you get something, you're 0.005% more likely to get something next time. It actually works pretty good.
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Goop2 wrote:
Actually there is some truth to what he said. If you take a look at games like Ogre Island they have a unique, but very cool way of leveling. Basically they add 0.005 (or something like that) points to your experience, whatever you do. If you're collecting resources, you start with a 50% chance of collecting, and if you get something, you're 0.005% more likely to get something next time. It actually works pretty good. I haven't played Ogre Island but I've read about it. It apparently does have a lot of interesting mechanics. However, none of what you just said validates Dragonn, because that's still a form of leveling up. Lummox JR | |
How do you do it then? There is always going to be some sort of "Leveling up". Either you're going to have a game with 0 character progression, or theres going to be *some* sort of "leveling", be it wealth, status, etc.
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Actually, the reason all RPGs have leveling up in some form is really simple. It is the only way they can effectively make a game difficult or challenging.
In every single RPG I have played things like player skill (not skills you level up, but how good the actual player is) are unimportant, or simply don't count. The higher level a person is the better they are at the game, and that is that. If you ask me this is a fundamental problem with the way RPGs are made. In a action game for example leveling up is not needed, as the player gets better at the game as they play, they learn how to effectively kill enemies, how to use special attacks, how to block/counter enemies and so on. In a RPG none of this exists, everything is based on numbers. When an enemy attacks you whether it hits or not doesn't depend on how fast your reactions are and if you are skilled enough to block/parry the attack, it depends on whether the dice you roll are higher than the dice the enemy rolls. Even in RPGs that try to say that player skill is important, such as in stratergy RPGs this is one of the core gameplay elements. If you ask me if you tried to remove leveling up from a RPG in every form then you wouldn't have a RPG anymore, you'd have something that looks more like an action/adventure game (Zelda for example, but even Zelda games have leveling up, in the form of hearts which equate to Hp), and unless you vastly improved the gameplay you'd be left with a very poor action/adventure game at that. The RPG genre simply relies on numbers too much (regardless of how they are presented and manipulated) to just remove them. | |
Your idea sucks more then the basic concept of leveling up. You just assume that because you can do something, you should get better at it.
But that isn't how the world works (usually). You don't do something once and get better at it. Instead you have to train and practice at it to become better at it. Thats where the term experience comes from. You are rewarded with your efforts with experience from your trials to represent your struggle and over time that experience becomes skill. In Dungeons and Dragons, you don't get your max exp and then just instantly level up, the rule books dictates players must spend in in-game week training their skills in town (or wherever) uninterrupted before they can reap the benefits of their new skills. Of course house rules based on your DM can change. | |
Levels are a very simplistic way to differentiate differences in ability and date back to Dungeons and Dragons, as Lummox pointed out. What is interesting is that D&D descended from Gygax's wargame ruled, specifically adaptations for smaller scale skirmishes and tracking improvement. Hence the granularity and combat focus.
Ideally, an RPG is a game based on playing a role. It is essentially goal oriented extempt acting. Current computer game designs don't reflect that and tend to focus on the wargaming side of it. (Although, ironically, most of the successful single player RPGs succeed based on story, not fighting) Advancement is one method used to keep players invested and allow progressively more difficult challenges to be overcome. While level based games can be fun, I intensely dislike them in a roleplaying environment as, I believe, they detract from immersion and believability. The standard level based system is far to granular, far too wide reaching, and not consistent with human development. Most level based systems start a player as an incompetent boob in mortal danger from an insect and progress to godlike power. I prefer a system whereby a character can start quite competent (or perhaps really good if specialized or has other flaws), and advancement is primarily through accomplishment and reputation, not arbitrary numbers. So I may make a valiant swordsman who helps to slay some trolls and even got the death stroke on a rock dragon once. Of course, he improved a bit on the way (big things teach you the value of evasion), but is still no demigod. Like most experienced warriors, he knows that winning a fight is based on knowing when to avoid conflict (and when to flee, bluff, etc.) as much as any martial prowess (a lucky blow can skewer even a master fencer). Of course if the only option the game offers is to kill stuff, well, expect players to do that. It's not really role playing, of course, but it can still be fun in its own right (Nethack and other roguelikes do the hack n slash better than most "RPG"s). To put it another way, you are diagnosing but one symptom of a larger problem. And, in the end, it doesn't really matter. The goal is fun. Levels can be fun. Advancement can be fun. Role playing can be fun, etc. | |
I think one reason Roguelikes do so well with this is that they tend to emphasize strategy. Bad strategy will still let you progress to a point and have fun, but good strategy is the only way to come even close to winning.
Leveling is closest to realistic in Rogue, I would say; it makes you vaguely stronger but not omnipotent, while your enemies become more dangerous much faster than you can. In Nethack you do attain more godlike attributes, but then the endgame is to ascend to divinity yourself. Lummox JR | |
Dragonn wrote:
You just attacked someone? Strength up Really though, if you punch someone in the face, are you going to become supremely strong? I don't think so. Rather, you might notice that you can hit harder, due to technical ability increasing. I personally like the idea of a weighted system... Say we have 4 stats: Strength, Defense, Magic Strength, Magic Defense Each of these consists of 25% of our stat pool, so we assign a value of 0.25 to each stat factor. At any point of time in a character's journey, he or she will have a "stat resources" variable; in this example, I'll use 1000 pts. We can find the value of any given stat by multiplying the stat factor by the stat resources. So if each stat factor is 0.25, 1000 * 0.25 = 250 per stat. Now, like with your example, I'll like to increase each stat gradually over time as they are used. For example, attacking an opponent may add 0.003 to the attack factor (with a factor max of 1), and reduce defense by 0.003. Getting hit may reduce the attack factor by 0.01 and increase the defense factor by 0.01 (when someone is in pain, they often have trouble fighting back). So after attacking once and getting hit once, we have: Attack - 0.243 = 243 Defense - 0.257 = 257 Magic Attack/Defense - 0.25 = 250 Of course, there could be more technical calculations for the modifying values. For example, if someone's defense factor was very low when they got hit, the factor might increase by a more substantial amount (akin to getting hit and getting very hurt, followed by trying not to take such damage again). I imagine this method working better in turn-based or pseudo-turn-based (such as Final Fantasy's ATB) battle systems, rather than in a Zeta-style punch-fest. Hiead | |
I like leveling up. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment, and I like to watch check out my stats to see what's changed, unless I upgrade them myself with each level.
Just because most of the games that use leveling systems suck and display no imagination whatsoever doesn't mean the leveling concept is bad. Doesn't mean its good either, but I like it nonetheless. | |
An excellent point. By focusing on the combat and exploration aspect, they produce a very enjoyable result. But they also don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. I think that is one of the reasons people often get disillusioned by so called RPG's- here they are expecting to be able to play a brave warrior, or sneaky thief and all they get is a combat driven level grind without half the strategy of a rogue-like.
I don't know that it it is even very important that RL's are more or less realistic because they are fun. Whereas supposedly "realistic" RPG's are often boring and filled with monotonous drudgery. | |
Jmurph wrote:
An excellent point. By focusing on the combat and exploration aspect, they produce a very enjoyable result. But they also don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. I think that is one of the reasons people often get disillusioned by so called RPG's- here they are expecting to be able to play a brave warrior, or sneaky thief and all they get is a combat driven level grind without half the strategy of a rogue-like. I generally never care about character class, but in Roguelikes it makes a big difference whereas in RPGs it may not so much. In Nethack for instance that determines your character's inherent bonus skills and starting items. In Crawl it's a huge factor, although for all practical purposes Crawl will always kill you by level 5 anyway. More "standard" RPGs tend to have the problem where they either don't distinguish classes quite enough so strong characters are essentially classless, or classes are differently powered so that one becomes way too strong or another never becomes strong enough to be worth playing. Lummox JR | |
I'm going to reply here without reading 90% of what is above me. heh.
I think, if your looking for something that is not leveling up, you have to eliminate stats, because, one way or another, no matter what, as long as there are stats that can be raised, there will be a way to raise them, which will lead back to same problem. Thinking about it for the 30 seconds I spent skimming through this topic. One way out of this, in a Action RP'ish game, would be to have a -fun- combat system, quest that require player skill not stats. To add depth you can have items like equipments that 'give' you some kind of advantage. You can further this idea but having customizable equipment with other items you gain throughout the game. | |
Kataharo Tayoko wrote:
I'm going to reply here without reading 90% of what is above me. heh. You could easily have stats that can't be raised, that stay the same for the character throughout. It's just very uncommon. Thinking about it for the 30 seconds I spent skimming through this topic. One way out of this, in a Action RP'ish game, would be to have a -fun- combat system, quest that require player skill not stats. To add depth you can have items like equipments that 'give' you some kind of advantage. Equipment can be another form of leveling in its own way. In Nethack, finding good equipment confers better bonuses than leveling up. It's the major incentive to delve deeper into the dungeon sooner. In Rogue, hunger is what drives the player on. Lummox JR | |
Dragonn wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks conventional "leveling up" is idiotic, boring, tedious, and unoriginal? I know what you mean. However when you let people train specific stats instead of level ups its really impossible to balance. On wow for instance if you could just train one skill, youd have level 70s or whatever who are so hardcore that they only train one offensive stat and one skill. They create a build so one dimensional that all its meant for is trying to one hit assasinate players and junk. Its just impossible to balance. On my game if i did that, id have people only training one stat till the cows came home and they would all just whore the same stratagy. Player builds would fall apart and the gameplay suffers. | |
By limiting player builds, it gives players the satisfaction of being able to have a say in how their characters grow.
In the game I am currently working on, when players level up, each stat is increased by a 1D6 stat roll, plus they are given 1D[src.int]/src.lvl/2 training points and skill points (rounded up) for personally training their character and learning new skills. So if the end score is 3, they would get 3 training points and 3 skill points for personal use. | |
I'd sure love a game where, through bad luck while levelling up, I straight-up am completely unable to compete with people who have invested similar amounts of times, and have no way of fixing this (except, of course, by playing MORE than them).
Wait, no. I'd hate that. | |
I don't really care what you like Garthor, I was simply saying what I did to try and balance player power builds. Let me spell it out for you, I don't give a damn what you personally like Garthor, the fact that you wouldn't like something and never show up in my game, makes me very happy.
I took part of the idea based off of D&D 3rd edition, where, a few stat builds are based on luck of the draw, and more then enough people still enjoy it. | |
Also, I think you've confused leveling up and gaining experience.