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Are levels necessary in MMOs?
beregar
Member UncommonPosts: 34
Are levels necessary in MMOs?
This is a question that has been bothering me for a long time and I've tried to find an answer to it. What sparked this post are the recent Guild Wars 2 articles about equipment and rewards. ArenaNet seems to go through a lot of trouble to ensure you can't outlevel your equipment (the way how they handle sets, transfer of skins) yet they still level gate areas and enemies.
This leads to a few standard MMO problems:
the only reason to go back to lower level areas is nostalgia as the rewards are of no use to high level player
a few years into game's life lower level areas are devoid of people since most players have reached max level
area design inevitably focuses on end game content meaning that there will be limited paths to go through the content which is problematic if you are like me and enjoy having multiple characters
players breeze through initial areas and then complain there is no enough end game content
Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject. The question is are levels necessary in MMOs?
Yes in a sense that the key benefit of a leveling system is that it gives a sense of progress. Max level is a goal and each level is a nice little milestone while leveling up.
No in a sense that I feel it is completelly unnecessary to level gate enemies, equipment, and areas because I've yet to see a mmo where this amounts to actual progress.
Enemies
Let's look at enemies first. Can anyone name a game where there really is a difference between level 1 and maximum level enemies? Traditionally games have been about slaying cute woodland critters to progress through the game. Does it really matter if it's level 1 spider or level 60 spider if the only difference is reskin? Even if this is not the case and you slay dragons at level 1 then what exactly is the diference slaying a dragon at level 60?
Equipment
Similarly in most games the only difference between level 1 equipment and level 60 equipment is skin of the item and multiplier to stats. So at level 1 your warrior wields iron sword with +3 to str, +2 to dex and +5 to stamina and at level 60 the same warrior wields ubersword of slaying with +300 to str, +200 to dex and +500 to stamina.
Areas
Enemy and equipment levels force game designers to desginate level range for areas. There are level 1-5 areas, level 6-10 areas etc. The end result is that a few years in game's life, when everyone is max level, these lower level areas are devoid of people. Start a new character? Sure, but do you really want to go through same 1-3 paths to max level with every new character? This also means that there are initially less content to be explored once you hit maximum level because designers have to guarantee there's enough content to actually get you to maximum level.
Summary
I ask again? Why level gate areas, equipment and enemies if the end result is that there really isn't real difference between the low level and the high level content, and that there is less leveling paths and eventually obsolete content for players to experience?
Possible solution?
What I suggest is having enemies and equipment scale with player's level. This also means areas, their content, and rewards scale to player level. Players themselves would still have levels to give that sense of character progress. You could see level 1 players and level 60 players fighting side by side. Even in a same team.
When areas scale to player level they can choose which areas to go through so there is more content to be experienced even after hitting the maximum level. Each area should also have varied content. The enemies and rewards should be tiered based on how hard the rewards are to acquire.
So for example regular enemies might be tier1 where as ”dungeon” enemies are tier2 and ”elite/raid” enemies tier3. Experience, money and equipment rewards improve based on the tier of an enemy - or challenge/quest. This basically guarantees that every area has both mundane content and ”end game” content. Single player content, and party content.
Comments welcome and appreciated. Just try to be constructive. 
Edit: removed the tier explanation part and wrote a new thread. This one got too long. For better explanation of the solution part you can visit http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/293981 or my freshly started blog here in the MMORPG.com.
- Beregar
Comments
Levels are necessary for a MMO but not the general idea of what a level is. There has to be some type of progression whether you call it "Skills" or "Levels" or w/e else it doesn't matter but something has to improve and be able to improve to differenciate why you are weak and how you get strong enough to kill mosters you once upon a time couldnt.
Without progression and things to look forward too I think it would be hard to hook a large playerbase... if any at all.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
No levels are not needed to produce an RPG. You also don't need any changes to the basic starting gear and stats. The question is how long will people play that type of game?
I appreciate the way Warhammer and City of Heroes/Villains and Champions deal with this issue.
Warhammer has tiers. In realm v realm PvP, you are auto leveled to the top of the tier to even out stats, etc. You don't, for the most part, get additional powers. Depending on the class, you often have many of your core powers early or midway through, so it is a matter of more panic buttons, better gear, and other utilities. Higher renown ranked players also have an advantage from that equipment and renown powers/tactics too. BUT the degree of advantage is not as high as some games and you are almost always part of a group, where you vigilant contribution is more important that your uberness.
CoX and CO both have ways to level yourself to someone on your team. CoX also have some foes that are autoleveled to be basically on your level. Higher level toons have more powers and more ways to buff those powers, but since you have some flexibility about when you get your powers, you can get key ones earlier if you want.
All three games you will regularly see people seek groups with little concern over your level.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Yet I feel this is essentially the situation with current MMOs. There is no real change. Your stats go up, your level goes up, and I agree these are all something that give a sense of progress. However, you have nothing to actually show for that progress: the enemies remain same, areas remain same, and the rewards remain same.
Heck even your abilities remain same. Is it really progress if you start with Lightning Bolt at level 1 and at level 60 get Lightning Surge if they are visually indentical (or worse yet, lightning bolt I and Lightning Bolt VI). It's only numbers changing in current games.
- Beregar
Generally, I believe yes levels are required.
However, I think levels alone are never enough anymore as a progression mechanic. WoW went overboard with gear progression, so that can be overdone as well. Skill, attribute, and specialization or traits are all important to an RPG (Online or off). They have become staples, what we need now is another successful layer to progression. It’s been tried in different ways, diplomacy, PvP levels, thick crafting or gathering systems.
Overall, it’s a tricky balance to get right and I am not sure if anyone has done this perfectly. GW2 might have the right hammer and nail though, so we shall see.
For some examples, UO had fantastic skill based progression. Diablo had great gear progression mechanics, and EQ (AA points) and WoW brought skill trees into the mainstream.
Not saying we need something net new, just implemented in a way that creates an “Oooh Ahhh” result. Perhaps Rifts will have some of this with class specialization. Of course the FF14 class system is also very robust – if anyone can get past the wall of hatred in development, sadly that’s a ship that may well sink on the NA shores.
When it comes to level based progression it is a mainstay of the psychological rewards system games use to keep you playing. It is tangible and simple to comprehend for any player.
What would you like to change? RPGs are based on numbers and numbers can only go up, down, or stay the same. MMOs have to be based on numbers they are being caculated by computers. I do not know how you change this dynamic without changing it to a FPS type game.
--John Ruskin
IMO level based MMO is doom from the start, why you ask, well first you got your classic lvl 1-10 area then 20-30 and so on hence the world gets divided into zones and very rarely you never go back to those zones again because you have out leveld them, you only returns for the nostalgic or rpg sessions.
If the game were skill based and the mobs were only mobs with different strength rather than lvls then you can move around in all zones doing what you like sure it can be tough when easy mobs are guarded with a stronger mobs or stronger mobs are nearby but it is possible to kill them or you can team up to down that head mob and reap the reward.
With a skill system you are not forced to take a specific route to progress like you would in a classic mmo like you have to do all the quest in newb area or you can't kill a mob 3-4 levels above you, you are more freely focused on skilling up your skills how you see fit not A--->B----->C------D ding ding woot lvl 50 now what?
The game itself don't have to be sandbox to enjoy a skill system it's just another aproach.
When you are playing a level based game you go thrue content fast in some MMO very fast and you sit there after a month or 2 and wondering yeah now im max level 50 and the devs only have 1 raid dungeon for us to raid in.
If the game is skill based you can basicly raid from the start not the epic raids like in the classic MMOs but there will be dungeons you can enter and have fun and you can mixmax the players so they can complete it not like the other MMOs everyone have to be lvl 50 or you are to low to get the quest to complete it.
Yes im rambling right now maby because im slightly drunk but I hope you get the general picture how i feel about it.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Levels are necessary, yet how many games implement them is pretty piss-poor.
To an extent, the way enemies are handled as far as level is one of the better ways most games handle them. There really should not be much difference between a level 1 spider and a level 60 spider. The level 60 spider should be a better spider than a level 1 spider. The extent of how much better, though - is often a failing of the level mechanics in the game otherwise.
More on the spider later.
Equipment is well done in some games and atrocious in other games. DDO takes a much more realistic and logical approach to equipment than WoW does. I prefer the method in DDO. It makes it more about the character than about the gear. Imagine WoW, if you would, where at level 80 you were still using that +2 sword you found at level 20 because rare items that are better are actually rare and not a dime a dozen..million.
Back to the spider for a moment. The reason that level 60 spider looks ridiculous statwise in some games is because of how the game handles equipment. That level 60 spider is not a test of your character - it is a test of your level 60 gear.
More on the spider later.
Areas have usually never made sense to me. You have starting areas - where the NPC guards are the highest level and the NPC mobs are the lowest level. Your character ends up facing mobs and doing tasks that should not exist in those areas. As you move away from the starting area, things get harder (as you move away from the influnence of the NPC guards)...but wait, while the starting city might have level 1000 guards - the next zone over may only have level 10 guards - the next one over level 20 guards. It is all just a slap in the face of the commonsense of the players.
They do treat zones along the lines of a school system. Once you have moved from elementary school to junior high, you do not hang around the elementary school. Once you move to high school, etc, etc. That works fine for a school system, but it leaves areas barren in games. Yes, their thought is that there will always be new people in those zones and they do not want to crowd them... but the emptiness and the crowding happens. It ain't working, guys - lol.
Back to that spider again. It becomes very artificial to find mobs spread out the way they are. Most mobs are going to be looking for a food source...it makes more sense for there to be a variety of levels of spiders in whatever zones the spiders are in because of this.
More on the spider later.
Much of what was said ignores the problem with how levels are handled with players. A level 80 naked player should not be as powerful in comparison to a naked level 1 player as they are in many games. It just blows the whole scope of things....
...and back to the spider, equipment, areas, etc. Everything becomes the wretched farce that it is because of how levels are dealt with in regard to the player. Fix that - then it will be easier to address the other issues.
As for scaling? So you will have a level 1 player swinging at a level 1 spider which is a level 60 spider to the level 60 swinging at it?
As for tiers? They may have different names, but you will still just be facing a myriad of stats that are off base. And most of the "fantasy" versions of critters offered are just that - fantasy versions. A dragon is just a flying lizard. A giant is just a big person. Our "fantasy" creatures are just "special" versions of the "mundane"...
I do not agree with limiting the number of skills a player can have. I agree with limiting the amount of improvement in the skills that a player has.
A high school football player is going to be better than a pee wee player. A college player better than a high school player. A professional player better than a college player. A professional player with some experience is usually going to be better than a rookie professional player. Etc... you can squeeze 80 levels in there, without it being the pathetic silly excuse for leveling that we have in most games...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
If you read my post you see that I'm not advocating removal of character levels. I feel they are a necessary part of character progression. What I'm suggesting is scaling monsters and rewards to your character's level.
Currently enemies and rewards drop at certain levels which you have to match to your level. So instead of you having to be high enough level for a reward or enemy, the reward or enemy adjusts itself to your level.
Essentially it's the toolbox that grows with levels. Not actual power level since this has always been an illusion (i.e. level 1 spider vs level 50 spider. Same enemy, only number changes).
What exactly this achieves you may ask? All areas become available to all levels unlike now where the areas are level gated. Meaning more content that is available for everyone and no actually "wasted" content like starter areas in current MMOs.
Edit: Actual difficulty of enemies is controlled by tiers (or whatever you choose to call them). Level 50 character would most likely have easier time against tier2 and tier3 foes simply because they have more tools (skills, traits) available but it would not be numerically impossible for level 1 character to defeat same foe. Especially if they team with another player.
Spider is a spider whether it is level 1 or level 50 character fighting it. This is not the case in current MMOs where there are level 1 spiders and level 50 spiders. Yet from visual point of view there is no difference. Heck, the level 50 spider might even be smaller than level 1 spider - or dragon - or what not.
- Beregar
I think levels are necessary. Why would a first day new person be able to take on some elite mob much less kill another player who's been playing for months or more? Without levels it would be like a FPS and not even exactly like that either. I'm a firm believer that part of the fun of MMO's is the reward for doing the time to get to the place you want to be.
Even if you remove level, you still get something called skill points leveling. Which isn't too much different.
Yet, curiously enough. It's all relative. I mean what exactly makes elite mob an elite? Is it the levels or skill/tactics and abilities required from the player? For me it should be the latter.
Furthermore it is very easy, and actually better method in my opinion, to place other limiting factors. What if you have to unlock that mob? Go through an event or quest chain? Does it really have to be a level that controls access to elite mobs when there might be better ways?
Isn't it more pleasant to go through a quest chain to unlock an enemy than grinding to certain level only that you can start experiencing the "real" content.
This touches a few other issues namely "elite mobs are end game content" and "elite mobs are big bags of hp and damage" but I won't get into them.
- Beregar
Levels are not only unnecessary, they're a huge millstone around the neck of MMOs. The sooner they're jettisoned from non-ironic games the better.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Levels are not necessary. It's just that it's much easier for developers to follow an established paradigm than to create an entirely new system to support a purely skill-based alternative. Also, players are part of the problem. Many of us insist on seeing a very clear and linear measurement of our progress in a game. A level system does this with ease. Lastly, levels also allow developers to manipulate a player's exposure to content more easily by implementing level restrictions on gear, instances, zones, etc., (You must be *this* tall to ride this dungeon).
Skill systems are nothing new and have been successfully used before. Levels are just so much easier for players and developers though, that there's little call to move forward. A shame really.
really depends on the player!
I am the kind of player that loves to make myself an unsung hero. I love to travel back to places that my old group got smashed up by mobs and find now that i can solo them or help newer players out. with this in mind you need some kind of levelling.
My problem is i have not yet come across a game that does skill based well....i missed out on AC and never played UO. i went straight to EQ.
Since then i tried Darkfall, which is level based with a different name ( and dont let anyone tell you otherwise
) and found in DF that you need to level your character just to compete.
If there are any MMO's on the market at the moment with skill based systems that offer a trial then i would be glad to try them and give more of an opinion.
Strictly necessary ? No.
Hitpoints arent necessary either.
PvP isnt necessary either.
Raids arent necessary.
Classes arent necessary.
Skills arent necessary.
Magic isnt necessary.
Elves arent necessary.
Global chat isnt necessary.
Trade isnt necessary.
Crafting isnt necessary.
You can make games without anything. The only question is if the game is fun. All these things may add to the experience. But you can do differently, of course.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cloudsol/
Yep, GW doesn't have level limits. They have skill requirements for weapons and offhand items though. I don't remember how GW2 will handle it though (if they have even released the info).
- Beregar
Progression is necessary. You can do it with levels, or skills, that increase in power.
Scaling sucks.
A mouse then, is the same as a dragon.
A Jawa is the same as Darth Vader.
Because, you know, they scale.
I'm afraid I do not have the answers you seek on my eliteness.
No No No NO !!!!
I hate levels in a MMORPG (its fine in a single player game). I'm sort of obliged beceause near all games uses this system.
It cuts the game in two , like one where you go trough all your level and after you do things to get better gear and for me those system are shit compared to what I've seen in olders game like U.O for example.
Anyway I'm not an opinion type of guy, don't argue, just sucks for me I guess.
So many people in this thread are faulting levels when they should be faulting the developers and the mechanics of the game.
Levels make sense - what developers do with them often do not.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I much prefer lvls/classes to allowing someone to mix/match skills from various class trees.
It is more than just for FoTM builds.
When Devs are trying to balance content, it is naturally going to be easier when you have 12 or 16 fixed classes vs skills from 30 classes mix/matched however.
So Devs can spend their time constantly balancing....or kicking out new content. Not a difficult choice AFAIAC.
EQ added skill progression to go with class/lvls....which is a good system IMO. With AAs, they gave you a way to "build" your characters powers. Only the most dedicated would ever see all their AAs filled.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Level is merely one of many functional methods of distributing game content in a sane manner in an RPG.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No, I don't think level's are necessary. I think that is the current norm. I also think that somewhere there is someone thinking of making an MMO that is utterly and completely different than anything that has come before. And, I think they can make it fun and engaging.
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