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Do MMOs even need leveling anymore?
Emiraly
Member Posts: 4
Since WoW got rid of skills and spell ranks and used the (Level x Spell Rank) system where your spells and skills scale level by level -- you don't have to train them at all, I've always wondered why they haven't just gotten rid of leveling already? I feel as though in most MMORPGs, the entire concept seems increasingly irrelevent as the vast majority of players can skip all of your content, or better yet, get totally discouraged and just stop playing because its taking so long to reach endgame.
Its pointless to do instances, as your shiny blue equipment becomes useless in only a few hours. Its faster and more reliable to grind these stupid quests that I don't have to read because nobody is acting them out, its on a nice sheet of paper.
You spend most of your dev time working on levels then spend no time on end game and surprise when everybody quits out of boredom -- turns out you can predict how fast a % of guilds can clear endgame content, but not how fast players will reach max level?
Balance in PvP is borderline impossible as you keep adding spells to each player and classes become imbalanced every 10 levels.
Leveling feels, kind of cheap. I think players like the skill system and even the talent tree more because your character doesn't feel like a cookie cut out -- where Sci Fi we regard our equipment as the source of power, in Fantasy its been traditionally been our skills and prowess -- nobody can just pick up a sword and become a master with it, like you can with a gun.
It might be easier to add a bunch of endgame content, then work on that and add unlock systems for abilities and gear, add quests, storylines, achievements, whatever to it. Your game might actually seem more complete.
Monsters are pretty static, rather than getting any new abilities or become stronger, a Lv.45 player vs. a Lv.45 mob won't see any more difficulty in killing that mob than a Lv.25 vs. a Lv.25 mob. It would be nice to see a Tier 5 area where the different types of mobs do different attacks or act completely different in combat from each other.
Also Monsters scale... inappropriately, a bunny rabbit at Lv.40 can one shot kill a Kodo Beast at Lv.10.
For how the WoW system and its clones are based on, tiered raiding and tiered pvp content isn't all that bad if more was added to it to vary it up, with more regularity. Hell, you could make all of it competitive if you wanted to, but to be honest, the game has never felt like an RPG to begin with, it seems like the intention was to turn it into a competition for equipment when you reach max level. So what do you think, do MMOs (or even just WoW ones) honestly need a leveling system if they're going to keep oversimplifying the system?
Comments
No, they dont.
I wonder how much of the MMO population never hits max level. Over half?
Some people actually enjoy the leveling experience. Me? Screw it, I'm with you.
Need some form of progression. Doesn't have to be levels.
Make games you want to play.
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Leveling was never needed.
...but it's a convenient power metric with clear game design benefits.
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With it: the progression is visible
Without it: The progression is not visible.
All games have some sort of progression, whether it's hidden or not is a mute point. Most players prefer to see progression as a means of achevement of time invested.
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I agree with you to a point. I just think there is too much of a dependence on your level and gear when playing. Levels and gear should give you an advantage but I don't think it should be one that makes you so ridiculously overpowered. In MMO's these days you have to get to the highest levels in order to be competitive in both PVP and PVE. This usually means that players just try there best to shoot past all the lower level content in order to hit the top levels. Like you said blue quality items become pretty much useless after a short while and all the good quality content that the devs have painstakenly developed is just power levelled by.
I think it would be so much better if your level and gear gave you an advanatage but not one where the outcome of a fight is so clearly determined. For example, a level 20 guy against a level 40 guy is pretty much a foregone conclusion in current MMO setups. If it was done in a way where the level difference and gear gave the level 40 guy an advantage but the level 20 guy still had at least some chance of victory I think then there weren't be such an enormous need to surge through the lower levels. It would also make levelling not so pointless as people would still have, however small, some chance of victory against a player of a much higher level.
Many wouldnt know what to do without a leveling treadmill and all games will keep it to a certain degree even TSW will use a leveling type system to gain new skills and or increase their power...
Still i would love to see a level and class free mmo that somehow focuses on its content being fun and its dungeons rewarding for all whom are involved instead of having to run a dungeon over and over and over again on a weekly or monthly basis just as a means to keep people subbing...
Its a pipe dream but who knows?
Playing GW2..
Feel free to enjoy what you enjoy, but for me, progression is key to my enjoyment of an MMO. In fact, progression is one of the defining features of an RPG. This isn't to say you couldn't have an MMOG without it, but you can't have an MMORPG without progression of some kind. I really, really enjoy the process.
The levelling up marks an increase in power; more hit points, more mana, greater chance to hit, etc.
The gear progression is also fun to me; finding a nice item that's an improvement over my current one. I really like those things. If we started at top level, there would be way fewer of those fun moments for me.
I also like the feeling of going into an area that's too tough; getting my butt handed to me, and then going back there 10 levels later and kicking ass.
When I played Wow I had 8 characters at maximum level and only a smattering of raid/epic items. I found raiding incredibly boring, and I found the slooooow, sloooow rate of progression sucked all the fun out of the game.
One thing I think they could do is have some instanced content scale to level, both in terms of mobs and loot drops. Combine this with an ability to sidekick someone much lower than your level, a la CoH, and you can keep much of the older content valid and useful.
I would say its actually the other way round, as what does progression have to do with RP?
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
I agree here. By doing this you open the game up to other game play.
The entire world stays playable
Trade is "world-wide" and not level dependent
Politics too
Players aren't zoned, so with the wide open world they can have a "home" area that's always playable
Events are open to all in an area
No instances or unreel feeling shifting required, one world feel
With "locals", you can add area dependent resources, caravans, shipping, (conquests?), etc., and it has meaning to the game and it's world, and especially to it's players as a whole, not zoned for levels.
Value is maintained. If you find a rare and powerful item, it is always rare and powerful. You don't level past it.
And note that you can still have Classes, or some combination of skills and classes, or whatever. It's the progression range that's important here.
There are loads of benefits that you add here, and the only thing you lose is the level grind and the "end game".
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I definitely see where you're coming from. The majority of work that goes into an mmo is devoted to progression content which all goes out the window as soon as you hit max level.
This means all the hard work development teams put into the leveling experience doesn't count towards the end-game experience at all.
If a dev team can come up with a good way to bridge the gap between progression content and end-game content they'd have something very nice on their hands. I'd even go so far as to say the two modes of play don't necessarily have to be seperate at all.
We're in dire need of completely new ways of thinking about mmo design.
Think about the leap from single-player rpg's to mmo's back in the day. Another similar leap is needed and that leap may just involve a complete reworking of the idea of 'progression' .
Taking it from an experience of going from point A to point B to point C etc etc to a much more all encompassing experience.
I have a feeling that this is part of the next leap in mmo design. All thriller, no filler.
And i'm all for it.
Was just discussing this the other day. I really think GW set a solid standard for games in relation to leveling.
It is needed as someone said to show progression. People need that. However to the same extent I believe the OP stated that it is often the only driving force to the game and the sole focus.
GW brings you to 20 pretty early on. With 20 being the cap this leaves you open to quest to collect more spells/abilities, more storyline and time to learn and play other classes. PvP is in there somewhere
.
I agree overall that games do focus to much on leveling, then they are put in a rut because they are trying to balance higher leveled skills and abilities. Not saying leveling should be removed, but it shouldn't be the main focus of the game. Leveling is great to learn the game and slowly give the player abilities, while giving them time to learn them. However at somepoint it just needs to stop and the story and other aspects of the game should shine through.
Levels almost seem supplemental to creating end-game content, which is a shame.
-Maltos-
Yeah, this.
Levels are more for the game designers, since it gives them a convenient way to plan the game out and design the overall progression of a character class. It also allows the developers to plan out the NPC population, since they can scale the difficulty of a particular zone or area of the game based on the level of the players in it.
Sure, they show the player that they're making obvious progress in the game, but in general levels themselves aren't needed.
I don't need levels to enjoy an RPG, but there are a lot of players who enjoy the physical representation of their progress by numbers. I think it mostly depends on the other mechanics of the games.
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Progression has always been part of RP. Look at the original pen and paper D&D. It has levels. Why wouldn't video game RPG and MMORPGs have levels?
In general, levels are more to ease design and game planning decisions for the developer or DM. They're not mandatory. But they give a tangible sense of progression for the player and make the lives of the programmers easier.
imo.. levels are just the carrot and stick approach to game mechanics.. their not needed.. and bring their own limitations to any game, after all the number of levels has to be finite to have any real meaning.. ... a really well crafted game world, would probably find level based progression to be counterproductive.. even in terms of balancing.. levels can introduce further complications.. but.. for the sake of simplicity.. levels are used as a 'goal' to be attained, pseudo content even
levels are the result of lazy game mechanics and imaginations.
Progression, sure. Character levels, no.
MMOs are social games, and it makes no sense to fundamentally stratify the player character population such that players have difficulty interacting. Certainly not just because one player has been playing longer than another. Players can progress in money, assets, gear, standing in both player and NPC organizations - and also in player skill.
I consider player skill to be the ideal form of progression because when one player has accumulated a certain skill, that player can teach other players. It is a social interaction that emerges as a result of a difference in progression instead of an isolation.
Having seen what game developers go through in terms of planning and bringing a game to market, I'm not so sure that it's lazy game design. It really is about giving the player tangible metrics to measure their progression and a way to allow the programmers and game designers to plan out a game in the least headache-inducing way possible.
i say lazy because imo it is... and in some ways it makes the dev's work even harder.. because... with levels you get several issues;
areas that are level dependant.. means that with every level gain.. the 'game world' gets smaller.
it would make sense for the entire game world to be available to players in a meaningful way after all...
.. .. and then there are the players themselves.. who can only interact in a meaningful fashion if their within a certain 'level' range..
items that become level dependent, and gear.. with levels you get 'gear grind'...
I get what you're saying, but there are also limitations to making the entire world open at once.
MMOs are perpetual games, meaning that they're always on and players always have access to them. I don't think people realize just how much planning and work goes into these games. I've had a chance to see it from the inside after being just a player for over a decade, and seeing an MMO from the developer's POV is enlightening. So many of the things we argue about and take for granted on these boards are causes of agita and long work hours on the developer's end.
I'm far more sympathteic to what these guys go through now, when in the past I would have easily sided with the idea that they're lazy designers and don't care about making a game meaningful or whatever. They work hard, for long hours, long past when most people would go home and go to bed. And they DO care about things like engaging the player and making their time in a game world fun. The reality is, however, that making an MMO means that certain design decisions have to be made, and so do some sacrifices. If it's not a level grind, it's a skill grind, and both of them have their strengths and weaknesses.
True.
OP doesn't like levels and tries to pull this @#$% to make his point. He should just say want he wants without the dramatic forum play.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Well, if you played dnd back in the 70s you wouldn't have to ask this. RP isn't limit to acting. The progression of the character what part of the role you were playing in dnd.
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I agree. Progression is a hallmark of RPGs and really, I get bored without more things to look forward to.
I have no problem with the concept of levels, but I DO have a big problem with the way that most MMORPGs implement the "power gap" between levels. For example, in most MMORPGs, the amount of power that a small difference in levels grants is extreme. It normally goes something like this:
>5 levels ABOVE - Almost literally impossible to beat.
3-5 levels ABOVE - Extremely challenging
1-2 levels ABOVE - Challenging
0 levels different - Equal, moderate challenge
1-2 levels BELOW - Not very challenging, easy fight
3-5 levels BELOW - Trivial fight (green)
>5 levels BELOW - Negligible, no real threat at all
To me, in a game with 50-60 levels, this kind of power gap is ridiculous. It means that you can usually only play with people 0-4ish levels different from you, and most of the game will be basically off-limits to you at any one time.
It really works to make the game feel more artificial, and it has nasty repercussions on PvP since anyone higher level has a huge unfair advantage. Why does the power gap have to be so extreme?
Being able to destroy newbie MOBs at level 20 really doesn't do anything for me, why would I do that anyway? I would be more happy if the power gap was such that two or three level 15's could stand a decent chance against a single level 60.
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Simplest answer: Mmorpgs need some kind of character advancement.
If there wasnt, it would be an adventure game, Akin to say "Croc"
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Well the game design benefits they yield are *for* players.
A clear power metric is very important for games about progression. There are all sorts of reasons, but mostly it boils down to letting your game (a) have noticeable power accumulation while (b) giving players a measure of that progression which lets them group together.
The ability to describe your character's power at a glance is highly desireable to players. Otherwise you wouldn't have seen players create an entire concept of level from scratch where none existed (gearscore in WOW.) In games where performance matters, and things are tightly balanced, this sort of metric is extremely important to players.
So it's such an important and functional game concept that players will create it on their own if it doesn't exist (or in WOW's case: if level itself no longer provides the same function.)
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