Ideally when people play a game, they should feel a sense of progression.
Stagnation is a death kneel for most games, as once players feel they are at their highest point, they have little to no reason to keep playing.
This is why grinds are put in start with, to give players something to work towards, a goal, and a sense of progress towards that goal. Level Grinds are just easy for players to see and grasp.
But, if you don't give players a sense of progress, what is their motive to log in? I mean, sure if your game is scantly hidden soft core porn like Second Life, there is that.. but.. really.. you need to think about what is going to keep your players interest.
Progression can be anything, doesnt have to be character levels. Making a Legendary armor can be progression. Building a House can be progression. Even Faction group development can be progression. Building a city can be progression. All of these are independent of Character Levels as well.
I would call most of those activities "chores", secondary to or in support of actual progression and I normally try to avoid or do as little of such as possible.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Ideally when people play a game, they should feel a sense of progression.
Stagnation is a death kneel for most games, as once players feel they are at their highest point, they have little to no reason to keep playing.
This is why grinds are put in start with, to give players something to work towards, a goal, and a sense of progress towards that goal. Level Grinds are just easy for players to see and grasp.
But, if you don't give players a sense of progress, what is their motive to log in? I mean, sure if your game is scantly hidden soft core porn like Second Life, there is that.. but.. really.. you need to think about what is going to keep your players interest.
Progression can be anything, doesnt have to be character levels. Making a Legendary armor can be progression. Building a House can be progression. Even Faction group development can be progression. Building a city can be progression. All of these are independent of Character Levels as well.
They all could be, but all you have done is put out tasks, no different than say something like mowing the lawn in real life is a task we do. Now in a game world as a developer, you have to establish some way to inspire people to want to do those things in your game.
Using your example: Why would someone want to make a legendary weapon? What is their motive to this?
Just for the hell of it?
When they can go play some other game that gives them the sense of growing in power, sure you don't need levels, but they are a very easy way for players to see progress in what they can grasp as a real sense.
It's like building a meal.
You can have lots of things on the plate, and you can even build an entire meal from what is normally a side dish, like making a whole meal from steamed veggies. For some this might be a grand novelty, or exactly what they were looking for, for many, this is not going to come across as a full main course, or even appear as a meal at all.
Whereas Levels are like Steak and Potatoes, traditional, simple, and enjoyable to the masses, and you can add all the sides you want and it just makes the meal more robust.
So, to recap.
Levels are not needed, but a sense of progress is.
Levels just happen to be a very easy way to give a sense of progress.
If you opt to do without levels, you need to find some other way to give that clear sense of progress.
Good Luck.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Ideally when people play a game, they should feel a sense of progression.
Stagnation is a death kneel for most games, as once players feel they are at their highest point, they have little to no reason to keep playing.
This is why grinds are put in start with, to give players something to work towards, a goal, and a sense of progress towards that goal. Level Grinds are just easy for players to see and grasp.
But, if you don't give players a sense of progress, what is their motive to log in? I mean, sure if your game is scantly hidden soft core porn like Second Life, there is that.. but.. really.. you need to think about what is going to keep your players interest.
Progression can be anything, doesnt have to be character levels. Making a Legendary armor can be progression. Building a House can be progression. Even Faction group development can be progression. Building a city can be progression. All of these are independent of Character Levels as well.
I would call most of those activities "chores", secondary to or in support of actual progression and I normally try to avoid or do as little of such as possible.
Some people can't tell the difference between the core RPG elements, the meat of the game, and all the side stuff apparently.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
MMoRPG's with out levels allready exist, isnt that what most survival games are?
If you don't want to level or skill up then play something else, there are so many games now.
I like my MMoRPG's the way they are.
And none of them are what players like me want. There's this huge, gaping hole in what's offered for MMORPGs. Sandbox, without forced open world PvP, without level grind, and a focus on playing in a full and rich fantasy world.
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
I don't agree. Technically, you have a point, but in practice and accepted definition, level based games have "levels." They come with XP from specific game play elements that progresses a cluster of abilities. That's as opposed to a Skill based game, where you build each Skill up with use. It's also different than a true Horizontal game concept where you neither Level up, nor Skill up, but rather gain new abilities in a side ways build.
What exactly a RPing game is, that's pretty open to interpretation after the point of playing a role of some kind. A Character, a piloted space ship or sailing vessel, maybe even a mechanized robot. The point is that a player plays that entity and directs it while interacting with other players in some game designed fashion.
I know this subject is highly debatable, and it's been hashed around for years. But if we're going to use these terms, we need to maintain some standard for them. I think what I just stated fits pretty well.
You definitely can have a system in place where player skill is more dominant than character level. You can have content gated behind specific gear, abilities and challenge over just having levels.
My biggest issue with levels is that content feels the same except now I have magic power to kill content I have no real reason to visit. If fighting a level 1 at level 1 is basically the same difficulty as fighting a level 50 at level 50 what's the point?
It doesn't always make sense either. Why is a demon wolf from hell and minion of world ending threat weaker than a regular rat in the new expansion?
I rather have...
1. Gear to grant access to and face new threats. You fire resistance gear to deal with fire realm.
2. Abolities to grant access to and face new threats. Wizard gains safe fall can now take parties into a trench.
3. Content be be rated by challenge instead of levels. You can essily deal with drakes because you learned how to fight them. Not because you out leveled them. A world ending threat from the base game is still tougher than the average character from the latest expansion.
This is essentially how action adventures work.
I think MMORPG developers are very comfortable with level designs because it gives them control. Players are invested in leveling even if it bores them in practice. Ultimately, this leads to no real reason to change things.
Fizzling spells in Everquest come to mind. Without the skill practice and levels to get the increase your spells fizzle at the worst possible moment. I remember standing around just practicing each school because there was divination, conjuration, evocation, abjuration and alteration each magic class would be proficient in some because they would use them a lot and when you get a spell on a school you have no skill in the spells fizzles and just consumes your precious mana.
Any kind of progress be it skill based or level based or whatever idea a developer comes up with is based on progression in the end. Some people like to see their levels go up. I like that too but I also don't enjoy outlevelling content but scaling in some ways just makes the game incredibly tedious.
You definitely can have a system in place where player skill is more dominant than character level. You can have content gated behind specific gear, abilities and challenge over just having levels.
My biggest issue with levels is that content feels the same except now I have magic power to kill content I have no real reason to visit. If fighting a level 1 at level 1 is basically the same difficulty as fighting a level 50 at level 50 what's the point?
It doesn't always make sense either. Why is a demon wolf from hell and minion of world ending threat weaker than a regular rat in the new expansion?
I rather have...
1. Gear to grant access to and face new threats. You fire resistance gear to deal with fire realm.
2. Abolities to grant access to and face new threats. Wizard gains safe fall can now take parties into a trench.
3. Content be be rated by challenge instead of levels. You can essily deal with drakes because you learned how to fight them. Not because you out leveled them. A world ending threat from the base game is still tougher than the average character from the latest expansion.
This is essentially how action adventures work.
I think MMORPG developers are very comfortable with level designs because it gives them control. Players are invested in leveling even if it bores them in practice. Ultimately, this leads to no real reason to change things.
The problem is that most people came into this new MMO thing thinking of D&D. That's why that system is dominant. It's easily recognized and has been expected.
But now, after all these years, people are seeing the flaws in the D&D design. After all, it was built for a small group, not as a massively multiplayer experience. And it brings problems with the leveling power increases for the masses, where it didn't for the small groups of multiplayer. Unless you can play equally with a small group all the way through, which most players can't.
There's also been the design choice of these games to entice gamers with huge power increases. Making those "dings" feel sweet! Each one. They are, by far, larger increases than D&D had. Even D&D's increases were too much for a massively played world. That showed up at conventions when players had to be divided by their level groupings, just like most MMORPGs have to do.
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
No, levels are not intrinsic to RPGs.
The only thing needed for roleplaying games is......role playing. Levels very rarely have anything to do with roleplaying.
There do exist roleplaying games without levels, they are just rare. Sadly, Dungeons and Dragons set the mould, so the geeks who grew up playing D&D are the same geeks who went on to create the first computer RPGs, borrowing/stealing from what they were already familiar with. It's become a self-perpetuating feature - we have levels because we had levels.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
we have levels because we had levels.
Well, that and the fact gamers overall seem to prefer leveling as a mechanic, as evidenced by how much money they've spent over the years on games which have them.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
For the record, I agree that levels are not intrinsic. And I think that you can make great games without them. Indeed, I'd like to see more done with horizontal systems.
That said, there is a not insignificant crowd that do want levels and do need to see their progress represented in tangible numeric terms. We have plenty of games for them, and I'm not going to suggest that we should ever stop seeing new games for them.
Just, our genre is stale and derivative. Maybe stop trying to please everyone. Make some games for the number chasers and some for people like me.
I think single player or small multiplayer games lend themselves more to a progression-less environment because they can be carried by story.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Weird how some people here see WoW like character levels as a mandatory RP part of MMORPG. Character progression can be done in more ways then just character levels. Character levels (like in WoW) is just a more basic variant of the possibilities you have for this. It is easier to design.
Imo the problem with modern MMORPG's is that the character progression became a goal on itself. This lead to levelling becoming meaningless, because the majority of content was in 'endgame'. Turning character progression into a chore. It is the major downside of a world that is divided into level brackets with major parts of the world being discarded the moment you turn max lvl. This is the main reason why these new MMORPG's don't feel like a virtual world, but more like a themepark ride.
This also lead to pointless progression systems that worked parallel to character level. Like for example crafting. Sure, there is something to craft along the way, but because everyone rushes to max lvl, only max level crafting is useful (and in some primarily loot based games, not even that). Again, discarding a lot of content along the way.
With downscaling they tried to alleviate this problem (GW2 for example). This can make the whole game world more useful with new gameplay reasons to go back. But this still makes parallel systems like crafting pointless for a large part, because of those still existing character lvls.
An alternative progression is skill progression for example. This can stand on
its own (preCU SWG), so that there is no character level, or can be
combined with character levels (Skyrim). Both can make character
progression more meaningful.
Early Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) used a
skill progression. You progressed skills/abilities based on usage. This
means that instead of locking yourself into a
class at character creation, you can progress and develop your character
during play into a direction that you want. Parallel progression systems like crafting was not tied to levels. So whatever you crafted was useful for any level.
But this is way more
complex to design then the WoW like levels. Because it makes combat design also more complex.
Anyway, any form of character progression can be turned meaningful, but it all comes down to world and encounter design. Modern MMORPG's are more about achievements then creating a virtual world.
Let's face it, the majority of PVE content in current mmorpgs is really really easy... even for a below average player. All it takes is time to grind out your levels/skills.
Some dungeons/world bosses are really difficult that have gear requirements and require disciplined group coordination. But those encounters are the small percentage of content.
My point, I think by making PVE so easy... the special feeling of hitting max level is gone (or the awe of even coming across higher level players or seeing the "few" max level players).
How many times can we see a game or expansion launch and there will be a youtube video on how to get to max level within x hours?
Maybe a game needs harder PVE, slower progression, and steep regression (aka lose significant experience for death)?
I think single player or small multiplayer games lend themselves more to a progression-less environment because they can be carried by story.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
I seen this argument repeated a number of times on this page of this thread. I read the comments, I just dont respond to every comment.
The flaw in this logic is that in every MMORPG with Character Level grind , there is always an Endgame in which you either stop Character leveling and progress in other manners, or you have a soft cap in which the levels after that point are pretty much just for show and your main progression switches to another form.
I am using WoW as an example since its one of the most popular MMOs that good chance people can relate to what I am trying to detail, but just about all Character Level grinder MMOs do this same thing.
WoW came out in 2004, and their first expansion came out in 2007 or 2008 i believe. So thats almost 3 years of Vanilla WoW in which most dedicated players had already managed to reach the hard cap level of 60, also known as Endgame, in which your character stops leveling.
But through most of that time, you still had progression of some kind. It just wasn't Character Levels. You had Mounts to get, Raids and Dungeons to do to unlock attunements for more Raids and Dungeons. You had Gear upgrades to grind for, especially for specific purposes such as Resistance Gear. You also had Battleground PvP Ranks to grind and PvP Gear to unlock. There was so much more to do in the game other than Character Level Grinding that so many people are overlooking.
Each of you more than likely played one of these games to Max level and experienced Endgame content for long periods at a time.
Whats stopping developers from making a MMORPG in which all that Endgame play was day one? No Character Levels or any of that. Day one, you dropped into the world. There are events and factions all over the world. You set off to gear up your character through different routes such as crafting or running Dungeons or Raids or Open World Events and Quest. You do task to unlock attunements. You discover new abilities for your class in the game world as your play and do task. You join a PvP Faction in which you help your faction build and defend a Faction Major city from enemy faction. You join a NPC third party Faction, doing task that they need done to gain higher faction with them and gain new rewards and helping expand the NPC faction into bigger side story objectives and group goals. All zones are available and built around endgame. Some NPCs harder than others and require more players or better gear with specific stats to deal with. All Dungeons and Raids available if you unlock the attunement for it and have the gear stats you need to beat it. You can help build smaller towns with other players of your faction with crafting stations and all that stuff.
And so much more. All of this is a MMORPG that day one has no character levels and you free to got your own journey. Which developers still can make story's and new content to add to the game, again no different from how Blizzard adds new story with each expansion and same with GW2 adds story with each living Story, but without Character Levels
As said, you free to create your own journey. You all all may start at letter "A", but it's totally your choice to go from "A" to "B" to "C",,,,,,, to "Z" Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on. Its up to you , DAY ONE. Because the Whole Game is endgame. Endgame starts day one. There is no meaningless progression as seen in Character Level based MMORPGs.
I think single player or small multiplayer games lend themselves more to a progression-less environment because they can be carried by story.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
I seen this argument repeated a number of times on this page of this thread. I read the comments, I just dont respond to every comment.
The flaw in this logic is that in every MMORPG with Character Level grind , there is always an Endgame in which you either stop Character leveling and progress in other manners, or you have a soft cap in which the levels after that point are pretty much just for show and your main progression switches to another form.
I am using WoW as an example since its one of the most popular MMOs that good chance people can relate to what I am trying to detail, but just about all Character Level grinder MMOs do this same thing.
WoW came out in 2004, and their first expansion came out in 2007 or 2008 i believe. So thats almost 3 years of Vanilla WoW in which most dedicated players had already managed to reach the hard cap level of 60, also known as Endgame, in which your character stops leveling.
But through most of that time, you still had progression of some kind. It just wasn't Character Levels. You had Mounts to get, Raids and Dungeons to do to unlock attunements for more Raids and Dungeons. You had Gear upgrades to grind for, especially for specific purposes such as Resistance Gear. You also had Battleground PvP Ranks to grind and PvP Gear to unlock. There was so much more to do in the game other than Character Level Grinding that so many people are overlooking.
Each of you more than likely played one of these games to Max level and experienced Endgame content for long periods at a time.
Whats stopping developers from making a MMORPG in which all that Endgame play was day one? No Character Levels or any of that. Day one, you dropped into the world. There are events and factions all over the world. You set off to gear up your character through different routes such as crafting or running Dungeons or Raids or Open World Events and Quest. You do task to unlock attunements. You discover new abilities for your class in the game world as your play and do task. You join a PvP Faction in which you help your faction build and defend a Faction Major city from enemy faction. You join a NPC third party Faction, doing task that they need done to gain higher faction with them and gain new rewards and helping expand the NPC faction into bigger side story objectives and group goals. All zones are available and built around endgame. Some NPCs harder than others and require more players or better gear with specific stats to deal with. All Dungeons and Raids available if you unlock the attunement for it and have the gear stats you need to beat it. You can help build smaller towns with other players of your faction with crafting stations and all that stuff.
And so much more. All of this is a MMORPG that day one has no character levels and you free to got your own journey. Which developers still can make story's and new content to add to the game, again no different from how Blizzard adds new story with each expansion and same with GW2 adds story with each living Story, but without Character Levels
As said, you free to create your own journey. You all all may start at letter "A", but it's totally your choice to go from "A" to "B" to "C",,,,,,, to "Z" Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on. Its up to you , DAY ONE. Because the Whole Game is endgame. Endgame starts day one. There is no meaningless progression as seen in Character Level based MMORPGs.
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
Maybe so if you take inspiration from D&D, but Role-Playing can be anything, so riddle me this. Are both the story heavy games like Planescape(or Disco) AND dungeon romps like Icewind or Diablo RPGs? Don't you play, you know, roles in both of them?
With that said, no levels are NOT intrinsical to RPGs, we merely grew accustomed to that state of things because of D&D's super powerful influence(then FF, then Diablo / EQ and then there's no going back). Are Guild Wars 1 bad because they have a shallow leveling experience? Is Disco somehow not ok because it don't have traditional(anything) leveling scheme?
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
No, levels are not intrinsic to RPGs.
The only thing needed for roleplaying games is......role playing. Levels very rarely have anything to do with roleplaying.
There do exist roleplaying games without levels, they are just rare. Sadly, Dungeons and Dragons set the mould, so the geeks who grew up playing D&D are the same geeks who went on to create the first computer RPGs, borrowing/stealing from what they were already familiar with. It's become a self-perpetuating feature - we have levels because we had levels.
Levels are intrinsic to the "G" in RPG. Never forget that this is a game, not a simple exercise in... whatever.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
No, levels are not intrinsic to RPGs.
The only thing needed for roleplaying games is......role playing. Levels very rarely have anything to do with roleplaying.
There do exist roleplaying games without levels, they are just rare. Sadly, Dungeons and Dragons set the mould, so the geeks who grew up playing D&D are the same geeks who went on to create the first computer RPGs, borrowing/stealing from what they were already familiar with. It's become a self-perpetuating feature - we have levels because we had levels.
Levels are intrinsic to the "G" in RPG. Never forget that this is a game, not a simple exercise in... whatever.
No, they are not intrinsic to anything except D&D's offspring. A game can be fun without any progression, see "Counterstrike"(some unknown game, pffft). Sure CS is another type of game, but would a (d&d) module that started you at 20 and focused completely on fair and balanced encounters be bad?
I think single player or small multiplayer games lend themselves more to a progression-less environment because they can be carried by story.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
I seen this argument repeated a number of times on this page of this thread. I read the comments, I just dont respond to every comment.
The flaw in this logic is that in every MMORPG with Character Level grind , there is always an Endgame in which you either stop Character leveling and progress in other manners, or you have a soft cap in which the levels after that point are pretty much just for show and your main progression switches to another form.
I am using WoW as an example since its one of the most popular MMOs that good chance people can relate to what I am trying to detail, but just about all Character Level grinder MMOs do this same thing.
WoW came out in 2004, and their first expansion came out in 2007 or 2008 i believe. So thats almost 3 years of Vanilla WoW in which most dedicated players had already managed to reach the hard cap level of 60, also known as Endgame, in which your character stops leveling.
But through most of that time, you still had progression of some kind. It just wasn't Character Levels. You had Mounts to get, Raids and Dungeons to do to unlock attunements for more Raids and Dungeons. You had Gear upgrades to grind for, especially for specific purposes such as Resistance Gear. You also had Battleground PvP Ranks to grind and PvP Gear to unlock. There was so much more to do in the game other than Character Level Grinding that so many people are overlooking.
Each of you more than likely played one of these games to Max level and experienced Endgame content for long periods at a time.
Whats stopping developers from making a MMORPG in which all that Endgame play was day one? No Character Levels or any of that. Day one, you dropped into the world. There are events and factions all over the world. You set off to gear up your character through different routes such as crafting or running Dungeons or Raids or Open World Events and Quest. You do task to unlock attunements. You discover new abilities for your class in the game world as your play and do task. You join a PvP Faction in which you help your faction build and defend a Faction Major city from enemy faction. You join a NPC third party Faction, doing task that they need done to gain higher faction with them and gain new rewards and helping expand the NPC faction into bigger side story objectives and group goals. All zones are available and built around endgame. Some NPCs harder than others and require more players or better gear with specific stats to deal with. All Dungeons and Raids available if you unlock the attunement for it and have the gear stats you need to beat it. You can help build smaller towns with other players of your faction with crafting stations and all that stuff.
And so much more. All of this is a MMORPG that day one has no character levels and you free to got your own journey. Which developers still can make story's and new content to add to the game, again no different from how Blizzard adds new story with each expansion and same with GW2 adds story with each living Story, but without Character Levels
As said, you free to create your own journey. You all all may start at letter "A", but it's totally your choice to go from "A" to "B" to "C",,,,,,, to "Z" Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on. Its up to you , DAY ONE. Because the Whole Game is endgame. Endgame starts day one. There is no meaningless progression as seen in Character Level based MMORPGs.
And yet we (players) start as babies, grow "in level" to progress through school, then get the boring jobs and careers, where we ONLY have money to drive us. Sure a few lucky ones get to do what they love, but of us "players" do whatever job we can make a career out of.
Then what? We die. There is an ending. A last chapter.
Ever see a TV series that runs on too long? An MMO that should have pulled the plug ages ago? They get boring. The patterns glare at you and you finally realize that this is all just a huge waste of time. Hopefully, you've made friends in the game that keep you coming back. Today, that's not happening as often anymore.
Or do you want a game where time magically stands still until you're bored with the whole thing? This is the biggest part of a living world that I miss in video games: time.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I think single player or small multiplayer games lend themselves more to a progression-less environment because they can be carried by story.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
I seen this argument repeated a number of times on this page of this thread. I read the comments, I just dont respond to every comment.
The flaw in this logic is that in every MMORPG with Character Level grind , there is always an Endgame in which you either stop Character leveling and progress in other manners, or you have a soft cap in which the levels after that point are pretty much just for show and your main progression switches to another form.
I am using WoW as an example since its one of the most popular MMOs that good chance people can relate to what I am trying to detail, but just about all Character Level grinder MMOs do this same thing.
WoW came out in 2004, and their first expansion came out in 2007 or 2008 i believe. So thats almost 3 years of Vanilla WoW in which most dedicated players had already managed to reach the hard cap level of 60, also known as Endgame, in which your character stops leveling.
But through most of that time, you still had progression of some kind. It just wasn't Character Levels. You had Mounts to get, Raids and Dungeons to do to unlock attunements for more Raids and Dungeons. You had Gear upgrades to grind for, especially for specific purposes such as Resistance Gear. You also had Battleground PvP Ranks to grind and PvP Gear to unlock. There was so much more to do in the game other than Character Level Grinding that so many people are overlooking.
Each of you more than likely played one of these games to Max level and experienced Endgame content for long periods at a time.
Whats stopping developers from making a MMORPG in which all that Endgame play was day one? No Character Levels or any of that. Day one, you dropped into the world. There are events and factions all over the world. You set off to gear up your character through different routes such as crafting or running Dungeons or Raids or Open World Events and Quest. You do task to unlock attunements. You discover new abilities for your class in the game world as your play and do task. You join a PvP Faction in which you help your faction build and defend a Faction Major city from enemy faction. You join a NPC third party Faction, doing task that they need done to gain higher faction with them and gain new rewards and helping expand the NPC faction into bigger side story objectives and group goals. All zones are available and built around endgame. Some NPCs harder than others and require more players or better gear with specific stats to deal with. All Dungeons and Raids available if you unlock the attunement for it and have the gear stats you need to beat it. You can help build smaller towns with other players of your faction with crafting stations and all that stuff.
And so much more. All of this is a MMORPG that day one has no character levels and you free to got your own journey. Which developers still can make story's and new content to add to the game, again no different from how Blizzard adds new story with each expansion and same with GW2 adds story with each living Story, but without Character Levels
As said, you free to create your own journey. You all all may start at letter "A", but it's totally your choice to go from "A" to "B" to "C",,,,,,, to "Z" Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on. Its up to you , DAY ONE. Because the Whole Game is endgame. Endgame starts day one. There is no meaningless progression as seen in Character Level based MMORPGs.
Wow that was a real lot and I'm not sure most of it applies to what I posted. As I said, you can certainly have a level less approach but it further exposes the hamster wheel. You gave a perfect example when you said "Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on." You literally gave an example where you end up right where you start.
Also, the game you describe has no more content than a level-based one. If I go A-Z in a straight line or I randomly go through all the letters.. at the end of the day I have the same amount of content. I guess the only difference is that at the "end" I have more places to choose from to repeatedly grind and repeat content? I mean, if I have gone A-Z in order or A-Z randomly it just means that I can repeat a wider number of zones in the level-less version? I guess that's a slight improvement.
And when you talk about building towns or factions or world events... all could apply to both worlds.
I think most folk would say that you don't NEED levels, but you need some sense of progression, either through story or equipment or character development.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
Maybe so if you take inspiration from D&D, but Role-Playing can be anything, so riddle me this. Are both the story heavy games like Planescape(or Disco) AND dungeon romps like Icewind or Diablo RPGs? Don't you play, you know, roles in both of them?
I play "the role" of a boxloader in Tetris. Does that make it a role playing game? I play "the role" of a soldier in Call of Duty. Is that now a role playing game, too? I play "the role" of a detective in Who Dunnit, a general in Stratego, an art collector in Masterpiece... RPGs?
With that said, no levels are NOT intrinsical to RPGs, we merely grew accustomed to that state of things because of D&D's super powerful influence(then FF, then Diablo / EQ and then there's no going back). Are Guild Wars 1 bad because they have a shallow leveling experience? Is Disco somehow not ok because it don't have traditional(anything) leveling scheme?
I don't think so. I would call them interactive books
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Aren't levels "intrinsic" to RPGs, though? If so, an MMORPG by it's very nature needs levels.
By the way, any number after anything (class, skills, abilities) are levels, ie: a way to measure growth.
Maybe so if you take inspiration from D&D, but Role-Playing can be anything, so riddle me this. Are both the story heavy games like Planescape(or Disco) AND dungeon romps like Icewind or Diablo RPGs? Don't you play, you know, roles in both of them?
With that said, no levels are NOT intrinsical to RPGs, we merely grew accustomed to that state of things because of D&D's super powerful influence(then FF, then Diablo / EQ and then there's no going back). Are Guild Wars 1 bad because they have a shallow leveling experience? Is Disco somehow not ok because it don't have traditional(anything) leveling scheme?
Yes, GW1 was a "bad" game for me due to it's shallow leveling curve. I put Disco E down after a few hours as it was more like what we called Adventure games back in the 80s, little combat, lots of puzzles, progression which modified the storyline, but not the avatar itself.
I don't consider such anywhere close to the traditional computer RPG as defined by the original Bard's Tale, Might & Magic, Wizardry, Ultima and a host, nay a legion of follow up games which well established what RPG's traditionally were about.
I enjoyed them 35 years ago, others didn't, I enjoy them today, other's don't, nothing really has changed.
BTW, hit level 411 in FO76 last night, 415 here I come.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If you don't want to level or skill up then play something else, there are so many games now.
I like my MMoRPG's the way they are.
Godz of War I call Thee
Using your example: Why would someone want to make a legendary weapon? What is their motive to this?
Just for the hell of it?
When they can go play some other game that gives them the sense of growing in power, sure you don't need levels, but they are a very easy way for players to see progress in what they can grasp as a real sense.
It's like building a meal.
You can have lots of things on the plate, and you can even build an entire meal from what is normally a side dish, like making a whole meal from steamed veggies. For some this might be a grand novelty, or exactly what they were looking for, for many, this is not going to come across as a full main course, or even appear as a meal at all.
Whereas Levels are like Steak and Potatoes, traditional, simple, and enjoyable to the masses, and you can add all the sides you want and it just makes the meal more robust.
So, to recap.
Levels are not needed, but a sense of progress is.
Levels just happen to be a very easy way to give a sense of progress.
If you opt to do without levels, you need to find some other way to give that clear sense of progress.
Good Luck.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
There's this huge, gaping hole in what's offered for MMORPGs. Sandbox, without forced open world PvP, without level grind, and a focus on playing in a full and rich fantasy world.
Once upon a time....
That's as opposed to a Skill based game, where you build each Skill up with use.
It's also different than a true Horizontal game concept where you neither Level up, nor Skill up, but rather gain new abilities in a side ways build.
What exactly a RPing game is, that's pretty open to interpretation after the point of playing a role of some kind. A Character, a piloted space ship or sailing vessel, maybe even a mechanized robot. The point is that a player plays that entity and directs it while interacting with other players in some game designed fashion.
I know this subject is highly debatable, and it's been hashed around for years.
But if we're going to use these terms, we need to maintain some standard for them. I think what I just stated fits pretty well.
Once upon a time....
My biggest issue with levels is that content feels the same except now I have magic power to kill content I have no real reason to visit. If fighting a level 1 at level 1 is basically the same difficulty as fighting a level 50 at level 50 what's the point?
It doesn't always make sense either. Why is a demon wolf from hell and minion of world ending threat weaker than a regular rat in the new expansion?
I rather have...
1. Gear to grant access to and face new threats. You fire resistance gear to deal with fire realm.
2. Abolities to grant access to and face new threats. Wizard gains safe fall can now take parties into a trench.
3. Content be be rated by challenge instead of levels. You can essily deal with drakes because you learned how to fight them. Not because you out leveled them. A world ending threat from the base game is still tougher than the average character from the latest expansion.
This is essentially how action adventures work.
I think MMORPG developers are very comfortable with level designs because it gives them control. Players are invested in leveling even if it bores them in practice. Ultimately, this leads to no real reason to change things.
Any kind of progress be it skill based or level based or whatever idea a developer comes up with is based on progression in the end. Some people like to see their levels go up. I like that too but I also don't enjoy outlevelling content but scaling in some ways just makes the game incredibly tedious.
That's why that system is dominant. It's easily recognized and has been expected.
But now, after all these years, people are seeing the flaws in the D&D design. After all, it was built for a small group, not as a massively multiplayer experience. And it brings problems with the leveling power increases for the masses, where it didn't for the small groups of multiplayer. Unless you can play equally with a small group all the way through, which most players can't.
There's also been the design choice of these games to entice gamers with huge power increases. Making those "dings" feel sweet! Each one.
They are, by far, larger increases than D&D had.
Even D&D's increases were too much for a massively played world. That showed up at conventions when players had to be divided by their level groupings, just like most MMORPGs have to do.
Once upon a time....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That said, there is a not insignificant crowd that do want levels and do need to see their progress represented in tangible numeric terms. We have plenty of games for them, and I'm not going to suggest that we should ever stop seeing new games for them.
Just, our genre is stale and derivative. Maybe stop trying to please everyone. Make some games for the number chasers and some for people like me.
Once you get into a persistent online world with masses of people, the story becomes harder to sustain and thus you need some other form of progression.
A level-less one is certainly possible, but it kind of blatantly exposes the "hamster wheel" that more games try to hide.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Some dungeons/world bosses are really difficult that have gear requirements and require disciplined group coordination. But those encounters are the small percentage of content.
My point, I think by making PVE so easy... the special feeling of hitting max level is gone (or the awe of even coming across higher level players or seeing the "few" max level players).
How many times can we see a game or expansion launch and there will be a youtube video on how to get to max level within x hours?
Maybe a game needs harder PVE, slower progression, and steep regression (aka lose significant experience for death)?
The flaw in this logic is that in every MMORPG with Character Level grind , there is always an Endgame in which you either stop Character leveling and progress in other manners, or you have a soft cap in which the levels after that point are pretty much just for show and your main progression switches to another form.
I am using WoW as an example since its one of the most popular MMOs that good chance people can relate to what I am trying to detail, but just about all Character Level grinder MMOs do this same thing.
WoW came out in 2004, and their first expansion came out in 2007 or 2008 i believe. So thats almost 3 years of Vanilla WoW in which most dedicated players had already managed to reach the hard cap level of 60, also known as Endgame, in which your character stops leveling.
But through most of that time, you still had progression of some kind. It just wasn't Character Levels. You had Mounts to get, Raids and Dungeons to do to unlock attunements for more Raids and Dungeons. You had Gear upgrades to grind for, especially for specific purposes such as Resistance Gear. You also had Battleground PvP Ranks to grind and PvP Gear to unlock. There was so much more to do in the game other than Character Level Grinding that so many people are overlooking.
Each of you more than likely played one of these games to Max level and experienced Endgame content for long periods at a time.
Whats stopping developers from making a MMORPG in which all that Endgame play was day one? No Character Levels or any of that.
Day one, you dropped into the world. There are events and factions all over the world. You set off to gear up your character through different routes such as crafting or running Dungeons or Raids or Open World Events and Quest.
You do task to unlock attunements.
You discover new abilities for your class in the game world as your play and do task.
You join a PvP Faction in which you help your faction build and defend a Faction Major city from enemy faction.
You join a NPC third party Faction, doing task that they need done to gain higher faction with them and gain new rewards and helping expand the NPC faction into bigger side story objectives and group goals.
All zones are available and built around endgame. Some NPCs harder than others and require more players or better gear with specific stats to deal with. All Dungeons and Raids available if you unlock the attunement for it and have the gear stats you need to beat it.
You can help build smaller towns with other players of your faction with crafting stations and all that stuff.
And so much more. All of this is a MMORPG that day one has no character levels and you free to got your own journey. Which developers still can make story's and new content to add to the game, again no different from how Blizzard adds new story with each expansion and same with GW2 adds story with each living Story, but without Character Levels
As said, you free to create your own journey.
You all all may start at letter "A", but it's totally your choice to go from "A" to "B" to "C",,,,,,, to "Z"
Or you may choose to go "A" to "G" to "Y" to "Z" to "I" to "B" back to "A" and on and on. Its up to you , DAY ONE.
Because the Whole Game is endgame. Endgame starts day one. There is no meaningless progression as seen in Character Level based MMORPGs.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Hrmmm ..UO basically delivers that 23 years ago
With that said, no levels are NOT intrinsical to RPGs, we merely grew accustomed to that state of things because of D&D's super powerful influence(then FF, then Diablo / EQ and then there's no going back). Are Guild Wars 1 bad because they have a shallow leveling experience? Is Disco somehow not ok because it don't have traditional(anything) leveling scheme?
I have liked them since my first "Ding!" In Everquest.
I liked them in nearly every mmorpg I have played, save for TSW.
You don't have to change every rule and every feature just to have a new game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Levels are intrinsic to the "G" in RPG. Never forget that this is a game, not a simple exercise in... whatever.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Also, the game you describe has no more content than a level-based one. If I go A-Z in a straight line or I randomly go through all the letters.. at the end of the day I have the same amount of content. I guess the only difference is that at the "end" I have more places to choose from to repeatedly grind and repeat content? I mean, if I have gone A-Z in order or A-Z randomly it just means that I can repeat a wider number of zones in the level-less version? I guess that's a slight improvement.
And when you talk about building towns or factions or world events... all could apply to both worlds.
I think most folk would say that you don't NEED levels, but you need some sense of progression, either through story or equipment or character development.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I don't think so. I would call them interactive books
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I don't consider such anywhere close to the traditional computer RPG as defined by the original Bard's Tale, Might & Magic, Wizardry, Ultima and a host, nay a legion of follow up games which well established what RPG's traditionally were about.
I enjoyed them 35 years ago, others didn't, I enjoy them today, other's don't, nothing really has changed.
BTW, hit level 411 in FO76 last night, 415 here I come.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon