We're playing a game with no levels. It's your first day playing. I've been playing for two years. We form a group and kill an ogre. Do I get any reward for the kill? Do you?
One thing I just can't seem to understand is why one chest drops when you're grouped. I think in a game there should be a chest drop for everyone in the group so what chest you click on is not what chest I click on. It is pure random so you get random drops and I would get random drops. Probably make grouping worth the effort too since there be many more drops.
Sorry, I might have been unclear here. By "reward", I wasn't referring to loot. I am referring to whatever takes the place of XP in such a game, whatever you gain from combat that makes you stronger.
The true problem his not the time it take to level, it's what the end-game his. With a low level cap, there more content that stay challenging when you get to lvl cap, instead of being forced into making alt or raiding you can play zone you have skip or redo those that were fun.
We're playing a game with no levels. It's your first day playing. I've been playing for two years. We form a group and kill an ogre. Do I get any reward for the kill? Do you?
One thing I just can't seem to understand is why one chest drops when you're grouped. I think in a game there should be a chest drop for everyone in the group so what chest you click on is not what chest I click on. It is pure random so you get random drops and I would get random drops. Probably make grouping worth the effort too since there be many more drops.
Sorry, I might have been unclear here. By "reward", I wasn't referring to loot. I am referring to whatever takes the place of XP in such a game, whatever you gain from combat that makes you stronger.
Oh, I see.
I would think that is a game that was without levels you both still get the same reward what ever reward is.
On the same note optimal temperature of beer is 231 Tyrrhons.
I agree with this statement. The number is completely arbitrary.
With that said, I'm a fan of Eve online's system where all the skills are open to the player, but a combat player can only be affected by so many different skills at one time and there's more than enough different crafting tiers that there's variation in crafters too.
I think an MMO could completely forgo levels and skills, and rely on items and abilities (either from an equipped item, or found through questing, exploring, and/or discovering). Each ability and item set should have multiple and multiple tiers, but there should be some balance between, whether it's cost or availibilty of resources vs. stats/abilities amongst different teirs or if it's stats/abilities vs. stats/abilities within teirs or even combinations of this. Things should be balanced so that there's enough reason to use different items and equipment for different situations.
Then have item destruction similiar to Eve-online to drive the economy.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I believe the lower the level cap, the more significant a single level usually is in 'character power'.
One of the greatest things about Asheron's Call is although the 'level cap' was 126, you were flagged to do end game events (Aerlinthe Isle, etc..) and were pvp capable at level 50. Devs can scale dungeons for levels and players can enjoy the game before you hit end game. Throw a few dozen levels in between characters and there should be an obvious power difference but this is a huge way to balance character growth and keep pre end-game content exciting.
Games where a lvl 1 character is fighting a rabbit and a level 20 character is fighting a dragon... there can be no challenging co-op or competitive pvp until end game.
I miss mmo's being about the experience to end game and then there was still content the Devs worked on. Now adays MMO's are released as a hollow game engine with flashy texture packets that the devs scramble to create content to keep as many players as possible while they wait for the next 60 dollar MMO to come out. I have not seen any loyalty to a brand in an mmo in nearly half a decade.
It's not the number of levels that is important, it's the time it takes per level, and the amount of unique content you have access to per level (ie, how many trash mobs, if any, do you have to grind to go up a level?). People who focus on the biggest number you can hit in a game are the shallowest of MMO players, IMO.
If these level-hating posts were "I'd like to see the genre try something different" that'd be fine.
...but to say levels are "terrible" indicates a fundamental lack of design sense.
Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. Levels aren't my cup-of-tea since relative to my friends I'm a slower leveler; however, levels aren't bad in and of themselves. It's how the developers handle what the levels mean in terms of content opened up to the player that I would think determines that.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
If these level-hating posts were "I'd like to see the genre try something different" that'd be fine.
...but to say levels are "terrible" indicates a fundamental lack of design sense.
Suppose a game has 6000+ quests and the possibility to complete 99% of these quest. Now suppose the game has a immersion factor that makes the lore and story doing the quests worth doing. Suppose also that by the time you have done 25% of the quests your character has hit max level and the other 75% of the quests are basically no challenge but you do the quests to bide your time and gain some alternative experience until next release. Now again suppose that on the next live update the developers make a way for you to mentor yourself to any level so you can gain some other benefit and have some challenge. Did they not just remove levels?
EQ2 developers started thinking outside the box that even a level based game can have no levels. I think it is a good move.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind" 1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN 2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
I think the optimum level cap is 100ish, but I come from old school console RPGs. Plus games with 50- caps, you reach it too easily, and games with +100 caps take forever. Games that go to 90-100 tend to have a nice balance of the two.
Still, I prefer there be no level cap, honestly. I think we'd be better off if we got away from level cap numbers and just continually award players for in-game feats.
Leveling up is supposed to be a numerical representation of power, power acquired through experience (points), experience gained from fighting, questing, helping, exploring, etc. So why do I suddenly stop growing once I hit a 'cap', if there's still more to do? Because a capless system means people who started later would never catch up to established players.
That's why I prefer skill systems, because it avoids all that. If I spend all my time crafting, I should be stronger in crafting that someone else, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to get better at a sword should I decide to pick one up and start swinging. I think that kind of system is a large part of the reason why games like Runescape have continued going strong despite its next-gen competitors.
And yes, I know, even those skills have a cap, but in that regard it makes a little more sense. The cap for specific skills is a representation of a plateau of power/learning, sort of like how you'd learn plenty from reading a book the first few times, but everytime after that you're not learning anything new. And if there's no new (better) books to read, you've learned all you can until new books (content) are read (played). That's unlike a level-bases system, for instance WoW, where I can level to cap, find new territories and gain nothing from the exp I would have acquired from finding a new zone, even if I'd barely done any exploring prior.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I like level system best, it has the best RPG value for meg. But, I do not like a reachable level-cap. Soft-cap is the way to go - if the level-cap is lvl 100, the soft-cap should range from lvl 40-75ish...I don't like the bait&switch formula almost all playable MMO have these days.
Levels are always a part of MMOs and if developers don't use them, then players always come up with their own artificial levels. The "no levels" argument is pointless trolling.
Optimal level caps are dynamic and depend on solely on the game design. A game that has diminishing returns may want a limitless level cap, but a game that has significant power increases with each level may only want 50.
20. Adding more levels are just fluff, you dont need any more.
What really matters is how long time it takes to max out your level. If you add too many it just gets annoying, the only difference is that you have to change gear a little more.
And don't add more levels with expansions. That is the reason most games never gets balanced, once they finally are getting better they add more levels and start from scratch again.
There is no advantage with 100 or 200 levels compared to 20 assuming it takes the same time to reach that last level.
too many D&D fans that are used to 20 lvls that are designed to lvl up every ** encounters. Grind is all in your mind and disappears if there is immersion in the game. there are dozens of reasons to have more than 20 levels.
Don't spit at fluff in a game as long as everything else is there (solid gameplay, mechanics, dev communication, steady content release). I'd love to have a personal fluffer.
Most of the time no, it's still the same grind in a different skin.
Level 1-5 of skills or 1-100 etc. is still the exact same linear statistical progression as levels, just with a different skin.
I agree with this.
However i would like to play a good game with no level cap.
I could tolerate a system where, in terms of relative player power -
At "max" your relative power level on a scale of 1-100 would be 100.
New characters would start at 1.
The time it'd take to get to 80-90% relative player power should be extremely minimal. Mabye as little as a day (24 hours) of in-game play time. Enough time to learn the ropes, understand the game, etc.
Then that last 10-20% of relative player power would take months... perhaps longer.
Why?
Let everyone get to a competitive level quickly, to a level where they can cooperate and play together without restriction quickly... but then the last 10-20%, what really would seperate the masters from everyone else (like in real life) would take time and dedication.
However, even when you get to the theoritcal maximum, you are not ungodly powerful you're really only 10-20% above the masses - still easy to be taken down/defeated by good use of strategy, tactics, and skillful play.
I dont know why people are hating on the levels.. Atleast it encourages you to play the game whereas skills just promotes sparring with a friend or guildmates. Thats what UO turned into ( and very quickly ) and thats what any skills based game would turn into.
People are also forgetting that it IS possible to have both in a single game. Having levels doesnt exlude the ability to have an underlying skill based system and VV.
A game that just has a skill progression system has 1 and only 1 goal and thats to increase your skills and that gets boring ( which leads to sparring ). But adding a level system with it you have 2 goals to shoot for. Instead of saying " No reason to grind much today because none of my skills are close to the next " you would say " I am going to shoot for X lvl today because none of my skills are close to the next ".
If a game is just going to have one or the other then levels are the way to go. It gives a player a reason to get out and do something instead of sitting around while looking for a sparring partner.
I'd be a big fan of tossing out levels and classes as well. As someone else mentioned, allow players to reach a softcap of skill or ability suitable for most endgame content within a short time frame. Perhaps as little as 2-3 days, but no longer than 2 weeks of solid play. Then allow for a hardcap of skills or abilities that is perhaps 25%-30% greater in total scope than the softcap, but require a long, long time to finally reach it.
Or something like that.
If you absolutely MUST keep levels and classes, then the number doesn't matter. As others have pointed out. But...
I really, really liked what City of Heroes did with the Exemplar / Sidekick system for people being able to enjoy content, regardless of levels. Leveled advancement in an MMORPG is the Number One barrier preventing a player that is new to the game that just brought the box home from having fun with their friends who suckered them into playing.
Allowing players to "rollback" their characters temporarily to an earlier level of power / ability to run alongside with their friends who are new players was genius, along with the reverse of like, a Level 12 blaster being invited for an endgame encounter where everyone's 50. Because the people could contribute, have fun, and gain rewards within the game scaled for what the players were doing.
It was sheer genius, and I'm at a complete loss as to why other games (aside from a very few other examples) haven't made this a feature.
If these level-hating posts were "I'd like to see the genre try something different" that'd be fine.
...but to say levels are "terrible" indicates a fundamental lack of design sense.
Suppose a game has 6000+ quests and the possibility to complete 99% of these quest. Now suppose the game has a immersion factor that makes the lore and story doing the quests worth doing. Suppose also that by the time you have done 25% of the quests your character has hit max level and the other 75% of the quests are basically no challenge but you do the quests to bide your time and gain some alternative experience until next release. Now again suppose that on the next live update the developers make a way for you to mentor yourself to any level so you can gain some other benefit and have some challenge. Did they not just remove levels?
EQ2 developers started thinking outside the box that even a level based game can have no levels. I think it is a good move.
Well that's not removing levels.
Games with sidekick/mentor systems still have levels.
They simply "fix" the biggest shortcoming of a level system: playerbase fragmentation.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Level cap is irrelevant.
You could reach lvl 20 cap in Guild wars in 1-2 days and that didn´t ruin the game experience at all,since game wasn´t based on that....
Some games just fool you around for 80 levels....
It just depends on game´s design.
Sorry, I might have been unclear here. By "reward", I wasn't referring to loot. I am referring to whatever takes the place of XP in such a game, whatever you gain from combat that makes you stronger.
The lower the better.
The true problem his not the time it take to level, it's what the end-game his. With a low level cap, there more content that stay challenging when you get to lvl cap, instead of being forced into making alt or raiding you can play zone you have skip or redo those that were fun.
Oh, I see.
I would think that is a game that was without levels you both still get the same reward what ever reward is.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I agree with this statement. The number is completely arbitrary.
With that said, I'm a fan of Eve online's system where all the skills are open to the player, but a combat player can only be affected by so many different skills at one time and there's more than enough different crafting tiers that there's variation in crafters too.
I think an MMO could completely forgo levels and skills, and rely on items and abilities (either from an equipped item, or found through questing, exploring, and/or discovering). Each ability and item set should have multiple and multiple tiers, but there should be some balance between, whether it's cost or availibilty of resources vs. stats/abilities amongst different teirs or if it's stats/abilities vs. stats/abilities within teirs or even combinations of this. Things should be balanced so that there's enough reason to use different items and equipment for different situations.
Then have item destruction similiar to Eve-online to drive the economy.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I believe the lower the level cap, the more significant a single level usually is in 'character power'.
One of the greatest things about Asheron's Call is although the 'level cap' was 126, you were flagged to do end game events (Aerlinthe Isle, etc..) and were pvp capable at level 50. Devs can scale dungeons for levels and players can enjoy the game before you hit end game. Throw a few dozen levels in between characters and there should be an obvious power difference but this is a huge way to balance character growth and keep pre end-game content exciting.
Games where a lvl 1 character is fighting a rabbit and a level 20 character is fighting a dragon... there can be no challenging co-op or competitive pvp until end game.
I miss mmo's being about the experience to end game and then there was still content the Devs worked on. Now adays MMO's are released as a hollow game engine with flashy texture packets that the devs scramble to create content to keep as many players as possible while they wait for the next 60 dollar MMO to come out. I have not seen any loyalty to a brand in an mmo in nearly half a decade.
If these level-hating posts were "I'd like to see the genre try something different" that'd be fine.
...but to say levels are "terrible" indicates a fundamental lack of design sense.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's not the number of levels that is important, it's the time it takes per level, and the amount of unique content you have access to per level (ie, how many trash mobs, if any, do you have to grind to go up a level?). People who focus on the biggest number you can hit in a game are the shallowest of MMO players, IMO.
Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. Levels aren't my cup-of-tea since relative to my friends I'm a slower leveler; however, levels aren't bad in and of themselves. It's how the developers handle what the levels mean in terms of content opened up to the player that I would think determines that.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Suppose a game has 6000+ quests and the possibility to complete 99% of these quest. Now suppose the game has a immersion factor that makes the lore and story doing the quests worth doing. Suppose also that by the time you have done 25% of the quests your character has hit max level and the other 75% of the quests are basically no challenge but you do the quests to bide your time and gain some alternative experience until next release. Now again suppose that on the next live update the developers make a way for you to mentor yourself to any level so you can gain some other benefit and have some challenge. Did they not just remove levels?
EQ2 developers started thinking outside the box that even a level based game can have no levels. I think it is a good move.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Optimal level is of course 11. Explained below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY
lol...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
I think the optimum level cap is 100ish, but I come from old school console RPGs. Plus games with 50- caps, you reach it too easily, and games with +100 caps take forever. Games that go to 90-100 tend to have a nice balance of the two.
Still, I prefer there be no level cap, honestly. I think we'd be better off if we got away from level cap numbers and just continually award players for in-game feats.
Leveling up is supposed to be a numerical representation of power, power acquired through experience (points), experience gained from fighting, questing, helping, exploring, etc. So why do I suddenly stop growing once I hit a 'cap', if there's still more to do? Because a capless system means people who started later would never catch up to established players.
That's why I prefer skill systems, because it avoids all that. If I spend all my time crafting, I should be stronger in crafting that someone else, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to get better at a sword should I decide to pick one up and start swinging. I think that kind of system is a large part of the reason why games like Runescape have continued going strong despite its next-gen competitors.
And yes, I know, even those skills have a cap, but in that regard it makes a little more sense. The cap for specific skills is a representation of a plateau of power/learning, sort of like how you'd learn plenty from reading a book the first few times, but everytime after that you're not learning anything new. And if there's no new (better) books to read, you've learned all you can until new books (content) are read (played). That's unlike a level-bases system, for instance WoW, where I can level to cap, find new territories and gain nothing from the exp I would have acquired from finding a new zone, even if I'd barely done any exploring prior.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I like level system best, it has the best RPG value for meg. But, I do not like a reachable level-cap. Soft-cap is the way to go - if the level-cap is lvl 100, the soft-cap should range from lvl 40-75ish...I don't like the bait&switch formula almost all playable MMO have these days.
Levels are always a part of MMOs and if developers don't use them, then players always come up with their own artificial levels. The "no levels" argument is pointless trolling.
Optimal level caps are dynamic and depend on solely on the game design. A game that has diminishing returns may want a limitless level cap, but a game that has significant power increases with each level may only want 50.
20. Adding more levels are just fluff, you dont need any more.
What really matters is how long time it takes to max out your level. If you add too many it just gets annoying, the only difference is that you have to change gear a little more.
And don't add more levels with expansions. That is the reason most games never gets balanced, once they finally are getting better they add more levels and start from scratch again.
There is no advantage with 100 or 200 levels compared to 20 assuming it takes the same time to reach that last level.
too many D&D fans that are used to 20 lvls that are designed to lvl up every ** encounters. Grind is all in your mind and disappears if there is immersion in the game. there are dozens of reasons to have more than 20 levels.
Don't spit at fluff in a game as long as everything else is there (solid gameplay, mechanics, dev communication, steady content release). I'd love to have a personal fluffer.
Optimal level cap for a MMO?
One.
Levels are an abomination.
Does that mean skills are better?
Most of the time no, it's still the same grind in a different skin.
Level 1-5 of skills or 1-100 etc. is still the exact same linear statistical progression as levels, just with a different skin.
I agree with this.
However i would like to play a good game with no level cap.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
Join me on Twitch Facebook Twitter
I could tolerate a system where, in terms of relative player power -
At "max" your relative power level on a scale of 1-100 would be 100.
New characters would start at 1.
The time it'd take to get to 80-90% relative player power should be extremely minimal. Mabye as little as a day (24 hours) of in-game play time. Enough time to learn the ropes, understand the game, etc.
Then that last 10-20% of relative player power would take months... perhaps longer.
Why?
Let everyone get to a competitive level quickly, to a level where they can cooperate and play together without restriction quickly... but then the last 10-20%, what really would seperate the masters from everyone else (like in real life) would take time and dedication.
However, even when you get to the theoritcal maximum, you are not ungodly powerful you're really only 10-20% above the masses - still easy to be taken down/defeated by good use of strategy, tactics, and skillful play.
No level cap at all sounds much better
I dont know why people are hating on the levels.. Atleast it encourages you to play the game whereas skills just promotes sparring with a friend or guildmates. Thats what UO turned into ( and very quickly ) and thats what any skills based game would turn into.
People are also forgetting that it IS possible to have both in a single game. Having levels doesnt exlude the ability to have an underlying skill based system and VV.
A game that just has a skill progression system has 1 and only 1 goal and thats to increase your skills and that gets boring ( which leads to sparring ). But adding a level system with it you have 2 goals to shoot for. Instead of saying " No reason to grind much today because none of my skills are close to the next " you would say " I am going to shoot for X lvl today because none of my skills are close to the next ".
If a game is just going to have one or the other then levels are the way to go. It gives a player a reason to get out and do something instead of sitting around while looking for a sparring partner.
^
This
I'll be interested to see how TSW plays out since it will be leveless and classless.
I'd be a big fan of tossing out levels and classes as well. As someone else mentioned, allow players to reach a softcap of skill or ability suitable for most endgame content within a short time frame. Perhaps as little as 2-3 days, but no longer than 2 weeks of solid play. Then allow for a hardcap of skills or abilities that is perhaps 25%-30% greater in total scope than the softcap, but require a long, long time to finally reach it.
Or something like that.
If you absolutely MUST keep levels and classes, then the number doesn't matter. As others have pointed out. But...
I really, really liked what City of Heroes did with the Exemplar / Sidekick system for people being able to enjoy content, regardless of levels. Leveled advancement in an MMORPG is the Number One barrier preventing a player that is new to the game that just brought the box home from having fun with their friends who suckered them into playing.
Allowing players to "rollback" their characters temporarily to an earlier level of power / ability to run alongside with their friends who are new players was genius, along with the reverse of like, a Level 12 blaster being invited for an endgame encounter where everyone's 50. Because the people could contribute, have fun, and gain rewards within the game scaled for what the players were doing.
It was sheer genius, and I'm at a complete loss as to why other games (aside from a very few other examples) haven't made this a feature.
Well that's not removing levels.
Games with sidekick/mentor systems still have levels.
They simply "fix" the biggest shortcoming of a level system: playerbase fragmentation.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And what happends when you reach max level?
I think we need to have a hard look at what is actually happening at lvl "cap" rather then the leveling process.
[--Leveling--][---------------------------Gear Grind-----------------------------------]
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development