Why do we need leveling to progress our characters? What is the all-important feature that leveling supplies that cannot be achieved by some other means? Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love the “ding”, but can someone explain to me the actual importance of “levels”?
Leveling creates a few issues for me while playing MMOs.
The Dead Zones: Low-level zones become de-populated. They are barren of life and activity because no high-level character has the need to re-visit the zone. Unless farming for some item drop or power-leveling a buddie, there is really no reason for anyone to be in these zones. These poor, ignored zones are the direct result of the leveling mechanic.
The Lost Quests: Because quests grant rewards that are often level-based, there aren’t many players that go back and run quests from “low level zones”. There just isn’t anything to be gained by it for higher level characters. Many of these quests are fun, creative, and entertaining; alas, they will never be known to many players because they just “out-leveled-the-zone” before they completed all the quests there.
Grouping Segregation: Now, I realist that there needs to be some mechanic that separates players of differing abilities and equipment levels, but does it need to be “levels”? Once you reach “end-game” in many games, “gear score” or a “skill score” is a determining factor. Sometimes quest progression is the factor determining how far a character can advance in the game. No matter how you slice it, advancement tied to characters attributes creates “pockets” of characters that tend to progress through the game together. Most of the time, this advancement is linear, and once a certain portion of the game has been “out-leveled”, these characters aren’t going back to the “low-level-content”. The result is that new players/characters come in to an empty low-level world. Grouping becomes harder, as most characters have moved on to other zones and dungeons.
How have other games approached character advancement without levels, and what were the results?
I personally am level motivated. I find that games where I dont level and gain skills/spells tend to bore me. I have always had more fun from 1 to 50 in games than I do from end game content.
I also like areas where the content is a level range with some higher level mobs mixed in to keep you on your toes.
I will give Vanguard for an example. I didnt find the lower zones going to waste because i played them over and over with new characters. There were so many starting areas that it kept it fresh for a while as well. I am not sure how many character slots we will get but i hope i have room to use this play style again.
I have always found games where you just gain in skills not in level somewhat lacking. It is hard for me to explain why but I just like the level system to keep me motivated.
GuildWars 2 tried to combat the idea of "leveling" even though you did level in the game. If you went back to a noobie zone where mobs were lev 3,4,5, the game would "mentor" your character down to the level 5-ish to match the mobs. While it seemed lie a good idea, the game had to approximate your level, and with uber gear, you would still one shot mobs.
I do like level based games, although I Do understand what you mean by trying to find a unique way of progressing. Making all content useful at any time.
As I leveled in EQ1, I was so excited to be able to go to Unrest and kill yard trash. I remember gaining a few levels and I was able to go INSIDE that scary place and camp the hand. Then another few levels and I got into the basement and finally camp those boots!
I honestly don't know what a game with no leveling would look like. I know you could progress with new shiny armors and spells etc. but you wouldn't have those groups out on the SRO beaches just killing Crocs for fun. If all loot was completely random and anything could drop anything, why adventure anywhere. Just keep grouping at the starting zone 50 yards from your spell vendor and merchants.
They could make it where you have to go here to get your BP and there to get your greaves but basically after you got all your armor from various dungeons and mobs, there really wouldn't be anything left to play for. Just park it and wait til an expansion hits so you could go get new, better armor and weapons, then log out again for 6 months or a year.
/shrug. I get your line of thought, but without the carrot and stick, it seems like it would be boring or pointless after you went to enough places to have maxed out armor.
I won't be wasting my time in player housing. Talk about a boring waste of time. ... no thanks.
I did really really LOVE AA points in EQ. it was a lateral leveling but awesome.
xtnpd said:Why do we need leveling to progress our characters? What is the all-important feature that leveling supplies that cannot be achieved by some other means? Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love the “ding”, but can someone explain to me the actual importance of “levels”?
How have other games approached character advancement without levels, and what were the results?
Levels determined how the characters grew as all our skills based off our levels. It was the deciding factor in so many calculations with the most basic, the /con system, based directly off levels.
EVE Online uses no levels, everything is skill based so direct comparisons between players is difficult. My main character currently has 156million skillpoints. Yet is my character 'better' than a character with 30million skillpoints? It depends. If we're both flying Interceptors (an advanced frigate), there are only certain skills which will be utilized by either of us when in those ships. We could be exactly equal in applicable skillpoints. Move us into bigger ships or more advanced ships and my larger pool of skillpoints means I have more flexibility in what I can fly than the other person.
But in Pantheon, our character are in a single class with only a select set of abilities or skills, few of any will overlap between classes. How could we compare ourselves against each other or against an NPC without levels? Maybe on primarly weapon skill? But can 1HS for a warrior be the same as 1HP for a Rogue? What about stat total? But wouldn't that give artifical weight to races with higher base stats?
I really cannot think of a better means by which we can monitor our progression through a class based game other than levels.