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Tiered vs Level Based
beregar
Member UncommonPosts: 34
I decided to split this away from my main "Are levels necessary" thread because, after all, it isn't only about my opinions. This thread is. Different opinions welcome. For the "Are levels necessary" thread you can visit http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/293934/page/1
As a short summary: I feel there should be character levels that give your character new toys to play with. Character levels handle the numerical progress, and give that nice fuzzy feeling when you hear a "ding". They give you new skills and abilities to expand your toolbox. Traits that modify existing skills are a good example.
Areas, enemies and equipment however are without levels, and scale to your character's level. What these items have are what I like to call "tiers" but really, they could be called "difficulty levels", "prestige levels" or whatever.
Why tiers?
My main problem since the day of MUDs (started around 1996) is that a level doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't matter if your character is level 1 with a rusty sword and battered armor or level 50 with a uber sword of doom and leet armor. Not if they both are humbled by a single weak enemy. I like to use spiders as an example but it might as well be an orc.
Levels are not utilized to give actual sense of power, and only visual changes happen to your equipment. Foes remain same which is really strange considering slaying enemies and questing are in the core MMO experience. Even worse is knowing that a level 60 spider could beat a level 1 dragon.
Based on my experience I dare to say that regular players are mostly reward driven. You have to reach maximum level, you have to have the best uber gear - you have to be unique.
Instead of assigning level to enemies, equipment and other rewards, you assign a tier to them. Tier indicates how difficult an enemy is, how prestigious the item is, how difficult some area is to complete.
Tiers and enemies
A dragon will be always more powerful than a spider. It just doesn't matter that much if it's a group of level 1 players facing that dragon or a group of level 60 players. It adjust its abilities and tactics for the level of the group.
Some games prefer numerical scaling. I prefer skill scaling. Higher level players obviously have more tools at their disposal than lower level characters so an elite foe like dragon might also adjust to this. It would get new abilities, attacks and strategies when facing higher level foes. This is specifically true to elite and "raid" mobs, and shouldn't apply to regular foes against which higher level characters are situationally more powerful.
Tiers allow developers to group enemies based on how easy they are to defeat. Tier1 enemies are your regular giant spiders, orcs, harpies and what not. Tier2 enemies are elementals, minotaurs, wurms. Creatures that are a serious threat but not world shattering. Tier3 enemies are dragons, giants, demons - and perhaps even gods. Singular enemies that no player can defeat on their own.
Tiers and rewards
What is currently the difference between level1 rusty sword and level 60 uber sword of doom? To me it looks like the only difference are numbers and skin. Then why not assign tier to equipment. Basically a "prestige level". Equipment stats would again scale to character level but this "prestige level" affects how "cool" the reward itself is.
Tier1 rewards are mundane but still useful: an iron sword, a health potion, a drop of common material
Tier2 rewards become more prestigious: a flaming sword, rare material drop etc
Tier3 rewards are unique: named items with unique skins, item sets etc
Again it doesn't matter if it's a level 1 or level 60 party defeating a dragon. If they can defeat the dragon they should get the rewards. Nothing is worse than slaying a mighty foe and then getting 100 gold, a common crafting material and an iron sword for it. No matter what your level is.
Tiers and areas
Areas are nowadays level gated in a sense that they are split into content levels. Your level 5 character is expected to do level 1-5 content. Perhaps level 6-10 if they are really good. This is wasted design time in my opinion.
When rewards and enemies adjust to character level you don't need to level gate anything. All areas are available for all character levels. This doesn't necessarily mean that all areas and all foes are available to all charcters however.
Unlocking
Currently most MMOs use levels for unlock. You have to be a certain level to use an equipment, you have to be a certain level to enter an area etc. This is in a way funny because then developers go through hurdles to provide a "sidekicking" system that allows lower level characters to team with higher level friends.
I'd rather use actual content for unlock. Essentially instead of having to grind to level 60 to face that elite dragon and experience "end game", you have to unlock the foe through a chain of quests. Whether this is account based unlock or character based unlock is up to developers.
Unlocking can be used to spawn enemies to an area where they are not normally available, or they can open entirely new area for the character's to experience.
Character levels
Maximum level should be a goal but not viewed as necessity to experience "real" content. Character levels are best used to give players new toys to play with, to enhance existing skills and abilities, and for numerical growth. A level 60 character does not need to be *significantly* more powerful than level 1 character. It's enough that there's an illusion of power and growth.
The real difference between level 1 and 60 characters should be how experienced the player is, and the size of their toolbox. Situationally more powerful but not numerically so.
Why level gate things when you don't need to? Why level gate things and then try to design ways to get around these gates - or force players to find ones (sidekicking, transfer of equipment stats to new skin, higher level players giving money to lower level ones, shared banks, power leveling etc)?
- Beregar
Comments
There is no substantial difference between calling it "Tier" and calling it "Level".
Also, higher level usually translate into a much greater variety in tactics.
For example, if you're level 1 in Baldurs Gate 1, and are a mage, you have like 2 spells or so total before you have to sleep again, and otherwise can only do meager weapon damage.
The same character as a level 20+ mage in Baldurs Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal Addon has nearly a hundred of different spells to choose from, and can do apply amounts of different tactics against foes, which are equally varied.
/thread
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Actually there is a substantial difference between what the OP is proposing and the exponential levelling systems you find in most MMOs. Both are systems of progression but it's perfectly sensible to use different terminology for the purposes of having a discussion.
If I understand correctly the OP is trying to get at a progression system which allows players of wildly differing levels (or tiers!) to play together and doesn't render zones obsolete once their level range has been exceeded.
Comparing WoW's levelling system to a tier system the major differences are actually not immediately visible to the player. It's all the under the hood changes that happen when you level up in WoW: Your resistances, chance to hit and chance to avoid being hit etc all increase and its those changes which cause the level gate effect. There may be some very good technical reasons why those under the hood changes have to happen but I can't think what their purpose is other than to give players the sense that they are greatly increasing in power.
While the OP's objectives are good i'm not sure the tier system is an ideal solution because there is a lot more to progression than simply increasing levels. There is also the sense that you can achieve things and go places that you couldn't beforehand. The current levelling systems create a very strong illusion of progression even though the player is essentially running on a treadmill. With a tier system that illusion is stripped away and the player is faced with a very slow progression system which is something most people don't enjoy.
Once you play a skill based system you will see it doesnt make any sense to do it any other way.
Fallen Earth and Darkfall are two examples I am familar with. I doubt I will ever play another class/level based MMo again.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Fallen Earth is actually a mix of the two. Your level determines your min AP (20xlevel), but you still do chose everything your character does in the world skill/ability wise.
Overall, I think thats the best route. In a Skill-System game, even though there are no predefined levels/paths of advancement, there should still be some limiters to prevent omni-god characters from happening.
100% of the time, I'll play a game with rigid, unflexible Classes before I play a game where one character can learn everything possible in the game. Thankfully, I can play Fallen Earth to have my happy medium of the two.
Rigid classes are boring, but possible to bring a level of balance to, and its possibe to become "good" with the mechanics sooner than later.
Cap-less systems though feel like a bigger cop-out and only favors a "rich-get-richer" mentality, which is bad IMHO. Take EVE; My two reasons I don't play it:
No matter how much I learn, how quickly I can acclimate myself to the game, how powerful a corp I align myself with, NOTHING I as a player can do will ever even remotely let me catch up to a 3yr or 5yr player. The RT-Skill system makes that impossible.
Not a fan of the combat systems, but thats much more a genre preference thing, since I'll take FreeSpace 2 and X3 before I take Homeworld or SotSE. Now if I could have dog-fighting style controls/combat for light-craft, it'd be more appealing than orbit target, fire rotation of weapons.
The first is the one that matters most. I'm not saying a new player should be able to instantly catch up to a veteran player, but the system shouldn't be built to outright prevent them from catching up.
Just make sure the new player has to proove they can play the game well, so personal capability at executing in the game becomes more important. It's also why I hope MMO's start moving to incorporate platforming elements soon.
Hell yes, I think we should have moving-platform-jumping-puzzles, and Mega-Man-style disappearing jumps to time, with pits of instant death to await. Things to actually serve as a valid measure of skill, and not rely on 'time-spent'.
And a 'Skill-System' is just an expanded form of leveling. If your skill has a qualitative value associated with it, it's no different than a level at the core. They both progress a characters power, and just cover raising different things.
Really, Class/Level based systems are just small slices of Skill-System gameplay, but its the slices that prevent a player from making a "broken/useless" character. Thats goood.
The avg person won't reroll a new guy if they find out the last 120hrs of game play were for nothing and they stop being able to progress because the system let them irreversably create a non-functional build.
Lets Push Things Forward
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You hit the nail on the head. This is essentially what I am after. The rest of your post is as relevant to subject but I'd like to comment one part specifically. You state that current games give very strong illusion of progress but I feel this is not the case. At least I'm very disillusioned myself nowadays.
My whole argument is centered around the question "why have levels if low level content and high level content is basically same". Why is a level 60 spider different from level 1 spider? Why is a Lightning Bolt VI different from Lightning Bolt I? Why is a level 60 sword different from level 1 sword?
Also, I do not also propose removal of levels as you guessed. Character levels still exist, and they still have to be meaningful. They are the best method to earn new skills, traits, and other things that modify and expand your character's toolbox. Unlocking and leveling are not mutually exclusive.
This obviously works best in games that utilize skill system like Guild Wars - or even Champions Online. Both games allow much more skills than what you actually can bring to combat.
- Beregar
There is one substantial difference. Tier is a convenient method to group enemies and rewards into small groups that basically tell the difficult of an enemy or prestige level of an item. They are also used to separate the concept of character level from how enemies and rewards are categorized. There might be 60 character levels but only 3-4 tiers.
As to higher level usually translating into a much greater variety in tactics. This is essentially what character levels should handle. Not tiers. Character levels are there to expand your toolbox. They give more options. However, there should be baseline. You mentioned BG1 as an example which is based on the AD&D/2E ruleset. Even 3E used same functionality. One of the greatest improvements in 4E in my opinion is that you have at will powers. A BG1 mage can run out of spells and is useless after that. These mages dictated that immediatelly after you ran out of spells, you were to rest.
4E mages have at will powers that never run out. They have also "encounter" spells that can be used once per encounter (usually) and daily spells that can be used once a day (usually).
A baseline character in tiered MMOs should be effective and fun to play. Basically to me this translates that after you leave a tutorial zone you should have around 5-6 skills to play with. Not too much to overwhelm you, but still something for your fingers to do.
When you level up in tiered MMO you start earning occasionally new skills which are alternatives to what you possess already. After all, I view this much better method than earning basically same skill with a different name (i.e. lightning bolt and lightning surge where the effect is identical but number different). You will also earn traits/trait points which you can use to modify your existing skills. There *are* character levels. It's just that enemies scale to those levels.
A level 50 character is more powerful than level 1. Not because they have a huge numerical advantage, but because they have more tools to utilize, and the player running the character has more experience. A level 50 character might be more suited against higher tier foes because of their larger toolbox and experience, but a level 1 character is not completelly outclassed.
- Beregar
At first I need to criticize that some of you that replied to this thread, only show that they didn’t really read what the OP has written. Maybe you should post on topics like: „Game X sucks“ and „Game Y kicks ass“. …
And now onto the topic:
What you are referring to, as I see it is normally known as horizontal progression (getting more option: levels) and vertical progression (getting more powerful: tiers).
Gaining a level doesn’t make the character stronger in overall but only gives him more tools to play around with. So a lv 1 mage has only a basic magic missile while a lv 20 mage has all kinds of spells to shoot at his opponent. But these are not better then the basic spell but only different. Maybe using the right spell on the right mob does slightly better, so there is a reason to use all the different stuff.
While the character always stays at the same level of power (tier), mobs, equipment and zones have tiers that show how strong they really are. So a mob with a high tier such as a dragon always stays strong no matter what level the character is at.
The benefit of this system is, that a new character can start playing with the big boys right away. So basically the game starts at endgame right away, if you want to call it that way. Also it prevents other problems that mmos have today. Zones becoming obsolete at higher level for instance.
The only problem is that the equipment should not give vertical but only horizontal progression as well. Or else it would only mean that you need to grind for the sword xyz of awesomeness before you can join the fun.
As you may have gathered from your other thread, I support the idea of eliminating levels and all that. With your specific idea of tiers, however, I just have a few questions.
How would these rules apply to PVP? I like PVP =D
Direct scaling between one person and one NPC is doable, but how exactly would the specifics work with multiple different-level people, and/or multiple different-level NPCs?
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