Correction, Arch. The MAJORITY of players think levels are fun. A MINORITY of players are looking for something else entirely, but settling because these games are close. I''d like to see a game that appeals to the latter, and to do that right, levels have to go. So be it. I don''t think any munchkin-less system would work with the kind of player you think of playing a MMORPG.
So I personally want to screw levels, knowing full well the consequences. There will always be an audience for leveling and similar phallic compensation, but that doesn''t mean I''m looking for the large, stable audience. Wow. I''m a psycho.
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Who needs levels?
IMNSHO, levels aren't bad, it's just the way they are implemented is.
It's ok to reward players, the problem is that were just rewarding them for the wrong reasons (i.e., for killing helpless animals).
Edited by - The Senshi on June 27, 2000 3:35:04 PM
It's ok to reward players, the problem is that were just rewarding them for the wrong reasons (i.e., for killing helpless animals).
Edited by - The Senshi on June 27, 2000 3:35:04 PM
Anybody ever play Shadowrun or Vampire? Those games didn''t have "levels", but they did have stat growth. Most recently, Vampire on the computer (which is a kick a$$ game BTW) lets you spend exp. on stats and powers, and there is a rank for the total amount of exp that you''ve acquired. The rank means NOTHING, but you still get stronger. I like that system.
I recommend you take a look if I''m not making any sense, even though the game uses hit points (ugh...)
/*initiates shouldn't have signatures*/
I recommend you take a look if I''m not making any sense, even though the game uses hit points (ugh...)
/*initiates shouldn't have signatures*/
Levels could be avoided altogether.
In my opinion, a level based system will usually confine players into a certain way of thinking (I''m level X, you are level Y). A skill based system does basically the same thing (I''m skill Z, you are skill W) but the area is a little larger (well, usually skills have a wider range than levels).
I still think a level system within a skill system is preferable to all others (meaning, for example you have a skilllevel of 60 in one handed slashing sword fighting; that would put you at level 6 of that particular skill) And instead of using numbers, let''s just stick to titles (swordmaster, blademaster etc)
Players need SOMEthing to boast about
As a poster mentioned earlier in this thread, it really DOES depend on the type of game AND the type of player it is made for.
I think the current type of player for rpg (UO, EQ, AC) DOES want some sort of level system where they can compare numbers with eachother and look up to player that outrank them, and look down upon those puny players below them...
Maybe the future brings other systems...systems more to my liking.
Silvermyst
In my opinion, a level based system will usually confine players into a certain way of thinking (I''m level X, you are level Y). A skill based system does basically the same thing (I''m skill Z, you are skill W) but the area is a little larger (well, usually skills have a wider range than levels).
I still think a level system within a skill system is preferable to all others (meaning, for example you have a skilllevel of 60 in one handed slashing sword fighting; that would put you at level 6 of that particular skill) And instead of using numbers, let''s just stick to titles (swordmaster, blademaster etc)
Players need SOMEthing to boast about
As a poster mentioned earlier in this thread, it really DOES depend on the type of game AND the type of player it is made for.
I think the current type of player for rpg (UO, EQ, AC) DOES want some sort of level system where they can compare numbers with eachother and look up to player that outrank them, and look down upon those puny players below them...
Maybe the future brings other systems...systems more to my liking.
Silvermyst
quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham
Why have levels at all? I mean, if you can improve your physical attributes in a game (which is absolute crap aswell) they who cares what level they are on anyhow.
Paul: Why do you think that improving your physical attributes in a game is absolute crap? Of all the types of improvement, improving your character physically is one of the most realistic (below skill improvements).
In many ways in real life it is possible to improve upon your physical ''attributes.'' For example, a person can make themself stronger or gain physical endurance over a period of time. Why shouldn''t an RPG character be able to do the same?
I admit that some attributes are probably debatable as to whether they can be improved. For instance, how much can someone really improve their appearance? But most of the ''classic'' attributes can be improved upon in real life, so it only follows that it should be possible in a game setting as well.
Anyway, maybe I''m misunderstanding you. What is it about improving physical attributes in a game that you do not like?
The Players need SOMETHING to boast about.
A true statement to be sure, but that''s not the same as the Players need LEVELS to boast about. That statement, I do believe, is quite false. To back up that belief, I simply point to the fact that you rarely see players boast about being level X. Go to any sort of Pkiller msg board and you will constantly see players boast about killing other players, and while you will also frequently see them include lvl comparisons in that boast, the bottom line is they still have something to boast about. I simply think that, even when looking at the mass market, it''s no longer true that players absolutely need levels. The problem is that there aren''t any developers willing to take the risk of providing an alternate system. (UOs system was a little too lacking for my tastes. I don''t want any closed end advancement system. The only caps we have in real life are those we impose on ourselves.)
A true statement to be sure, but that''s not the same as the Players need LEVELS to boast about. That statement, I do believe, is quite false. To back up that belief, I simply point to the fact that you rarely see players boast about being level X. Go to any sort of Pkiller msg board and you will constantly see players boast about killing other players, and while you will also frequently see them include lvl comparisons in that boast, the bottom line is they still have something to boast about. I simply think that, even when looking at the mass market, it''s no longer true that players absolutely need levels. The problem is that there aren''t any developers willing to take the risk of providing an alternate system. (UOs system was a little too lacking for my tastes. I don''t want any closed end advancement system. The only caps we have in real life are those we impose on ourselves.)
Personally i think having levels in rpgs is a game design flaw. Its an attempt to compensate the player for the lack of enjoyment that should come from the role-playing experience.
Why do i think attribute increases are crap? Mainly because of the way its implemented into games. They allow characters too much flexability to the point that it doesn''t matter how you started the game. Thus no role playing AGAIN! It discourages role playing.
I have no problem with skills as they contain a positive reflection of real life so they become useful to games.
Hitpoints are over used as well, the abuse of this system has lead to styles of games where characters just happily walk into a volley of 100,000 arrows and laugh. You don''t need a million/hundred HP in games, its pointless, why not just grant the player cheat codes if they want them. Personaly i''d prefer this to the current system of hp exploitation. Maybe it would kick the lamers out of games due to boredom, hip hip horray.
- You only need 30 -40 hp and a brain, that''s what i say -
Ok flame away, i''ve got 109,463 hp anyway.
WE are their,
"Sons of the Free"
Why do i think attribute increases are crap? Mainly because of the way its implemented into games. They allow characters too much flexability to the point that it doesn''t matter how you started the game. Thus no role playing AGAIN! It discourages role playing.
I have no problem with skills as they contain a positive reflection of real life so they become useful to games.
Hitpoints are over used as well, the abuse of this system has lead to styles of games where characters just happily walk into a volley of 100,000 arrows and laugh. You don''t need a million/hundred HP in games, its pointless, why not just grant the player cheat codes if they want them. Personaly i''d prefer this to the current system of hp exploitation. Maybe it would kick the lamers out of games due to boredom, hip hip horray.
- You only need 30 -40 hp and a brain, that''s what i say -
Ok flame away, i''ve got 109,463 hp anyway.
WE are their,
"Sons of the Free"
quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham
*snip*
They allow characters too much flexability to the point that it doesn''t matter how you started the game. Thus no role playing AGAIN! It discourages role playing.
*snip*
Ok flame away, i''ve got 109,463 hp anyway.
*hands Paul a Ring of Protection from Normal Flames*
I couldn''t agree with you more, Paul. I think I mentioned something very similar in an earlier thread on role-playing games.
Often, advancement is simply an excuse for "if you figure you need magic, just practice long enough until you can do it.".
In reference to your comments about hit points - they are most definately a double standard. On the one hand, you could say they represent your character''s advancement in toughness. Then why not simply stick to advancing a "toughness stat"? There is "constitution" in ADnD for example, which indicates your health. How can you suddenly be tougher if you didn''t get healthier?
So it''s not your advancement in toughness then, it''s something else. You get better at avoiding/taking damage? Well, there are all those other skills you have that amount to the same thing, why double up? There isn''t much sense in that whole idea, unless you''d ONLY have hitpoints, and not skills or any of that stuff related to damage.
Give me one more medicated peaceful moment..
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.
You guys are all hardcore RPGers. If you want the true experience, you''ll probably be waiting for a long time.
You guys are in the minority (Go play PnP for now). Pkillers are in the minority (people want to escape real life and human nature - not face it in a game they paid good money for to have fun in). There''s a good reason why Diablo did so very well - it was big, according to sales figures, it was very big. Levels are not important really (I joke when I say players need something to boast about - ahh the coldness of text with all but a few smileys to use). What''s important is that the GAME is fun and/or interesting.
BUT, the developer who can pull such a ROLE-playing game off, will rake it in big time due to a market that''s just asking for it - Women. Would you be ready for them to play with you? Surveys show: maybe.
Good Luck. I hope to see this true role-playing experience game some time in the future, because really, reality sucks.
Flame away.
You guys are in the minority (Go play PnP for now). Pkillers are in the minority (people want to escape real life and human nature - not face it in a game they paid good money for to have fun in). There''s a good reason why Diablo did so very well - it was big, according to sales figures, it was very big. Levels are not important really (I joke when I say players need something to boast about - ahh the coldness of text with all but a few smileys to use). What''s important is that the GAME is fun and/or interesting.
BUT, the developer who can pull such a ROLE-playing game off, will rake it in big time due to a market that''s just asking for it - Women. Would you be ready for them to play with you? Surveys show: maybe.
Good Luck. I hope to see this true role-playing experience game some time in the future, because really, reality sucks.
Flame away.
Ok... funny how lots of people seem to be saying "hey, levels aren''t necessary because you should get your fun from the role-playing experience".
Hmm, who said you could only have levels in a roleplaying game? Why not in an RTS, where you want to advance your troops, or in a click-em-up/RoleplayingLite/whatever you want to call it like Diablo?
And who said you couldn''t have more than 1 way of getting fun out of a game? There''s no reason why in a single-player game, levels should detract from the roleplaying. The only case I can think of is when the whole levelling system is handled badly, such as Landfish has pointed out: the times when you are presented with row after row of irrelevant opponents merely in the name of making you the correct level for future encounters. If done well, a level system is just an added way of having fun in a game. Just like in Elite, you could be raising your Elite rating, or collecting credits, or just trying to explore. More different kinds of fun within one game can only be good, providing the makers don''t add extra ones in to compensate for poorly thinking through the other options. Many games already make this mistake, but that makes the implementation bad, not the design.
And beware of being roleplay-bigots It''ll be a long time before the computer can give you the same sort of fun as a tabletop (or LARP ) RPG, so it makes sense to design in some other elements of gameplay to augment the storyline. Hopefully Vampire: The Masquerade and Neverwinter Nights might go some way to addressing the lack of ''real'' roleplaying, for the minority that want it.
Not that such elements -have- to be levels, by the way.
Now, onto my personal experience: I am currently designing a MUD, which is level-less and classless. There are very different considerations here than there are in a single-player game. Foremost is that the game is meant to provide for infinite playability. This means there always has to be some sort of goal for the players. You can''t achieve this with storyline alone, as you could never write enough stories and sub-quests quick enough for all your players. So the computer has to do some of the work, whether that is automatically generating quests, or providing some sort of numerical scale that a player can aspire to climb. And players -do- like some sort of ''ladders''. Some players want to be able to compare themselves to others, whereas other players just want to be able to measure their -own- achievement.
Another part of running an online game is that you want players to stay around: one way of doing this is to make them feel they have ''invested'' in the game. A level-based system is a (usually)one-way method of recording progression, and time/effort invested. The hope is that people will be reluctant to quit the game once they have got a lot of levels, as it would take them a long time to reach that point again in the future if they ever decided to come back. This seems to hold true in practice, although you could consider it more of a ''marketing'' ploy than a ''design'' issue. The fact is, though, if you can keep hold of your experienced players, your game''s roleplaying, community, and general atmosphere are going to be a lot better than if you just have a load of newbies who stay for a week and leave.
Hmm, who said you could only have levels in a roleplaying game? Why not in an RTS, where you want to advance your troops, or in a click-em-up/RoleplayingLite/whatever you want to call it like Diablo?
And who said you couldn''t have more than 1 way of getting fun out of a game? There''s no reason why in a single-player game, levels should detract from the roleplaying. The only case I can think of is when the whole levelling system is handled badly, such as Landfish has pointed out: the times when you are presented with row after row of irrelevant opponents merely in the name of making you the correct level for future encounters. If done well, a level system is just an added way of having fun in a game. Just like in Elite, you could be raising your Elite rating, or collecting credits, or just trying to explore. More different kinds of fun within one game can only be good, providing the makers don''t add extra ones in to compensate for poorly thinking through the other options. Many games already make this mistake, but that makes the implementation bad, not the design.
And beware of being roleplay-bigots
It''ll be a long time before the computer can give you the same sort of fun as a tabletop (or LARP ) RPG, so it makes sense to design in some other elements of gameplay to augment the storyline. Hopefully Vampire: The Masquerade and Neverwinter Nights might go some way to addressing the lack of ''real'' roleplaying, for the minority that want it.Not that such elements -have- to be levels, by the way.
Now, onto my personal experience: I am currently designing a MUD, which is level-less and classless. There are very different considerations here than there are in a single-player game. Foremost is that the game is meant to provide for infinite playability. This means there always has to be some sort of goal for the players. You can''t achieve this with storyline alone, as you could never write enough stories and sub-quests quick enough for all your players. So the computer has to do some of the work, whether that is automatically generating quests, or providing some sort of numerical scale that a player can aspire to climb. And players -do- like some sort of ''ladders''. Some players want to be able to compare themselves to others, whereas other players just want to be able to measure their -own- achievement.
Another part of running an online game is that you want players to stay around: one way of doing this is to make them feel they have ''invested'' in the game. A level-based system is a (usually)one-way method of recording progression, and time/effort invested. The hope is that people will be reluctant to quit the game once they have got a lot of levels, as it would take them a long time to reach that point again in the future if they ever decided to come back. This seems to hold true in practice, although you could consider it more of a ''marketing'' ploy than a ''design'' issue. The fact is, though, if you can keep hold of your experienced players, your game''s roleplaying, community, and general atmosphere are going to be a lot better than if you just have a load of newbies who stay for a week and leave.
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