Leveling Up.

[Erez]

Is leveling up role play or not roleplaying? Does it have a place in computer games?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of leveling up?

Name, games where it was done right and games where it was done wrong.

 

Personally I fine it break immersion in skill based games like elder scrolls, fallout, mass effect. its even more of a trouble where it is tied in with character damage which in real life should be based only on the weapon and hit location.

The problem is even bigger in games like mass effect where the player enters the role of the most elite commando humanity has to offer and he makes a tremendous progress in a short time even though pressing the trigger hasn't changed.

 

In addition to breaking immersion I also noticed it creates a lot of problems for developers regarding game balance, some tend to level up the enemies as the player grows in strength, ending up breaking immersion even more.  And if the enemies didn't grow in strength it creates a problem in sandboxes games and sometimes even in linear games where the player becomes too strong and the world is no longer challenging. after all there is also a limit to how many enemies you can throw on the player before it starts breaking the story. (Too many bad guys vs good guy syndrome.)

 

Real life experience thought me that while your skills become better the more you train, each of us reach a limit. In most games the limit is the player capabilities regarding that game.

 

 

[Qistina]

For dice roll games it is fine about level up, because it is all dice roll. If there's no level up, it will become lame because you stick with the same thing for hours. You don't feel your character become stronger or weaker but need to become stronger

 

But for FPS games, i still love level up, but like in Jedi Academy, you do quest you can level up your force powers of your choice, neutral force powers automatically level up. I can say Jedi Academy is the finest in level up system for FPS.

 

Then we have to look if it is open world like Skytim, story driven but still have liberty to move or like Diablo 2 map. Each of these determine which level up system is suitable or not. For Diablo 2 it is easier because you move from one map to another, but for Oblivion/Skyrim and KotOR/Dragon Age it is dificult.

[Amentep]

Role playing doesn't require leveling up, so I don't think it fits "role play" "level up".

 

Leveling up, is an abstraction though. Since P&P games didn't have the kind of advantages computer games can have in terms of calculating numbers, to my mind its a representation of a character getting better over time and use of skills and training.

 

I'd argue the lack of a limit on skill utility is part of the game aspect - ie you have to keep it fun for the player even if it doesn't model real life.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Amentep

[Volourn]

Levelling up is awesome. Real life is irrelevant. Real life doesn't have dragon, magic, witches , elves,  time travel, etc., etc., either. BIG DEAL.

[Humanoid]

Levels are a fairly easy abstraction of character ability, I have no issue with them, but neither are they the only way to represent power, as demonstrated by game systems which decouple skill gains from levels or remove them altogether.

 

That said, there are some trends that I do like and some I don't. One I think works is starting at a level above one, which neatly takes care of your starting skill allocations, and helps provide some illustration to your backstory. This works even if it's "fake" skills or levels: DXHR for example started you off with various augments already active and having put points in them - but you can never not have points in them. It represents what you've been doing in the months since the augmentation, that you're not just some guy fresh off the operating table.

 

A long standing dislike, on the other hand, is the concept of empty levels, where you are not given the chance to make interesting decisions. At the barest level, it's those levels in DnD where you're just given an extra hit dice and maybe an incremental automatic improvement to your hit rolls but literally make no decision. But not much better is the tiny incremental skill increases, often seen in MMOs, where every single level you get one point which you put into a passive 'talent' that requires multiple points to max out. Most commonly this just increases the damage of some ability by 2% or so, and that you're expected to do the exact same thing for the next four levels to gain a net 10% increase. This can often be a problem in systems where levelling is too frequent, which tends to dilute the design space of devising those interesting decisions. It's a waste of a levelling system.

[Erez]

Hey, Im a new poster here, is there a way to edit the first post of this thread? I have written several mistakes I would like to fix.

[Pidesco]

You have a 30 minute window to edit your posts.

[Bryy]

Personally I fine it break immersion in skill based games like elder scrolls, fallout, mass effect. its even more of a trouble where it is tied in with character damage which in real life should be based only on the weapon and hit location.

This isn't real life. It's a game.

[babaganoosh13]

Leveling up is a role-playing mechanic. If you do 100 pushups a day & run a few miles everyday, shouldn't you get stronger, faster and have more endurance over time? Deus Ex was one of the first games I remember outside of the traditional RPG to add it in and make it better because of it (although the story certainly didn't hurt if they made it a straight-up shooter.)

 

You're free to ignore leveling up to a large degree in Mass Effect, or turn on auto level up. SPECIAL made Fallout 3 that much better. Otherwise, Rage or other just straight-up shooters would have kicked its butt. Even then, doesn't it have an auto-level up? I've never got into the ES games, but even then, those have always been straight-up exploration RPGs in a traditional setting.

[Erez]

Leveling up is a role-playing mechanic. If you do 100 pushups a day & run a few miles everyday, shouldn't you get stronger, faster and have more endurance over time? Deus Ex was one of the first games I remember outside of the traditional RPG to add it in and make it better because of it (although the story certainly didn't hurt if they made it a straight-up shooter.)

 

You're free to ignore leveling up to a large degree in Mass Effect, or turn on auto level up. SPECIAL made Fallout 3 that much better. Otherwise, Rage or other just straight-up shooters would have kicked its butt. Even then, doesn't it have an auto-level up? I've never got into the ES games, but even then, those have always been straight-up exploration RPGs in a traditional setting.

 

Yes and no.

If you do a certain amount of push ups you will increase your potential but at one point you will hit a limit and your improvement rates will be very minor and sometimes you would even do less than your maximum.

Some skills  in fallout 3 makes no sense, it doesn't matter how skilled you are with a weapon a child holding a rifle will do the same damage as a grizzled veteran.

If you enter the shoes of a best human commando(mass effect) your improvement rate will be very little and you might even experience reduction in your abilities, In dragon age the player is among the best of the best, yet the progress he makes during his career as a warden is too big and in order to compensate the enemies are leveled.  Many games do this.

The famous baldurs gate had leveled enemies, (people in amn were surprisingly a lot tougher than their northen friends)  witcher 2 where the heavily armored knights from the beginning are a joke compared to the bandits and heavily armored knights at the end.

Instead of leveling up, why not simply focus on more customization options.

In fantasy setting progress would be measure with learning new moves and spells.

in science fiction setting, Modding the armor to grant certain abilities would be enough.

Traits like special in fallout 3 would still have their place since they help you define your character initial traits.

 

I think roleplaying is more about playing a role than leveling up.  Leveling up was important for D&D and such where all you had going for you was dice, if its a dice based game then I suppose leveling up is still in order. But if its a skill based game then level is a huge immersion (Roleplaying) breaker.

 

In mass effect I start the game with max level and all upgrades available, I find it more immersive and it also gives the story better pace. It only make sense that a spectre would already have the best available equipment.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Erez

[babaganoosh13]

'Tis what it 'tis. People prefer different things. I can understand why people don't want to grind and earn their stronger abilities. It's why you should be allowed to cheat in games and just say, give yourself max abilities. Of course, thanks to multiplayer everything they've cracked down on people being able to do that for their SP games without modding the game itself vs say a Game Genie type temporary deal or being able to access the /console.

[Vaeliorin]

 But if its a skill based game then level is a huge immersion (Roleplaying) breaker.

Being a skill-based game is already a huge immersion breaker.  Geralt the badass warrior can't fight for beans because I'm terrible at action games?  How does that not break immersion more than anything to do with leveling up?

[Erez]

 

 But if its a skill based game then level is a huge immersion (Roleplaying) breaker.

Being a skill-based game is already a huge immersion breaker.  Geralt the badass warrior can't fight for beans because I'm terrible at action games?  How does that not break immersion more than anything to do with leveling up?

 

 

This is what game difficulties are for )

 

Bad skilled players would play Witcher on easy while greatly skilled player would play on hard. the majority would play on normal.

This way, everyone gets to play a badass Geralt according to their skills, it works quite well. I don't see how leveling up is related, since every game have to stay challenging up until the end.

[Vaeliorin]

You're assuming there aren't people who would find easy far too difficult.  Some people are just terrible at action games (personally, I'm terrible at first person shooters...I find them incredibly disorienting for some reason, and even on the easiest settings can't get past the first hour of Half Life 2...I can actually beat the hard difficulties on Witcher 2 rather easily)

 

Anyway, it's not directly related to leveling up.  It was your argument that leveling up in a skill-based game breaks immersion (assuming such a thing actually exists.)  My contention is that it no more breaks immersion than the disconnect between the supposed abilities of the character and the actual abilities of the player.  When the game goes on and on about what a badass you are, and in reality you're struggling to beat even the most basic enemies, that, to me, is far more immersion breaking than any sort of leveling up.

[Erez]

You're assuming there aren't people who would find easy far too difficult.  Some people are just terrible at action games (personally, I'm terrible at first person shooters...I find them incredibly disorienting for some reason, and even on the easiest settings can't get past the first hour of Half Life 2...I can actually beat the hard difficulties on Witcher 2 rather easily)

 

Anyway, it's not directly related to leveling up.  It was your argument that leveling up in a skill-based game breaks immersion (assuming such a thing actually exists.)  My contention is that it no more breaks immersion than the disconnect between the supposed abilities of the character and the actual abilities of the player.  When the game goes on and on about what a badass you are, and in reality you're struggling to beat even the most basic enemies, that, to me, is far more immersion breaking than any sort of leveling up.

 

First I would like to tell you, you aren't bad at witcher 2 styled action game, mastering witcher 2 takes timing, you have to dominate the art of the roll in order to find witcher 2 easy ) 

In mass effect 3 they added story mod, which supposedly required very little from the player in terms of skill. if the developers make a game without (levels in mass effect 3 means very little for imported characters since the enemies level with the player)  they should simply add more difficulties. Half life 2 had only 3 difficulties, many games have embraced 5 game difficulties to allow for broader range of player skills.  Playing the mass effects game on easy would make you feel like a super badass since the enemies will  easily fall before you and barely manage to scratch being your kinetic shields.

The ability to become an even greater hero can be explained by acquiring new powerful item unavailable to the player at the beginning of the story, these items can serve as a decent plot device which fit in the tight time schedule of a game story.

 

 

If the game no longer requires, and only require a person to level up then it alienate a large number of players who would find the game dull, this is the case with many mmorpg, WOW, age of conan, guild wars 2 and etc.