Why do we Level? a discussion in the philosophy behind leveling

@jkyarr

I've read your answer with pleasure : as i'm quiete "new" to RPGs, I did not consider things as good as you did.

Yes, that would be very nice.

Levelling is a result of the fact that gaming is dominantly a male population and even though there are changes in that recently the origins of gaming as we know it are certainly male dominated. So what? you might ask.

Well, generally men are more goal oriented or achievement/status minded. And levels do exactly that.

My wife plays this game but doesn't care whether her characters are level 20 or not. I personally cannot wait to get to each next level. It's built into me.

Of course not all men are like that and not all women are different in this way but I think on the average it's a fair statement.

A guy tends to have a need to reach the next level. Why? Because he can and because it gives him status. To me, it's as simple as that.

And of course in life in general we do similar things, but we call it degrees or dimploma's, careers, titles etc and of course there we see that women certainly can take an interest in such things aswell...a good thing I'd say. But as far as origins go, good or bad, guys made games for guys.

1. Players want their chr. to improve in such a way that they can beat the environment and, at the same time, find new challanges to keep playing/improving. As long as these requirements are met leveling may continue. I think level 20 is too low. Normal would be a level 50-100 cap. Interesting would be infinite leveling and a discussion about the content of such a game.

2. Games should have content for all levels. Without restricting players too much. 'The environment will punish you' if you choose to play a too high/low level (either by finding nothing of interest or by getting killed instantly). Future devellopement should also include content for all levels, and eventually, new challenges for maxed out levels.

3. When leveling falls behind with the toughness of the environment, it becomes grinding; players start to repeat the same actions to grow stronger and make their chr. become alligned with the environment once more.

4. When you can beat everything in the game!

This is a nicely put argument. I agree that levelling is part of learning how to play not only the game, but also a character. My sin and my dervish levelled up really fast thanks to help from guild members, but I don't feel I ever really got to grips with either of those professions and I hardly play those characters.

My necro and my ranger, on the other hand, did the slow, grind levelling and learned everything the hard way. These are the characters I feel most comfortable playing (until Good Friday, anyway.)

I think level capping is a good idea, certainly in the GW format. The emphasis is on developing interesting and effective builds. I know this often doesn't happen because a lot of people prefer to just go to the wiki and pull a tested build off it, but the emphasis on builds moves it into the "playing smart" arena, instead of the "zomg I'm l337 n00b" arena. In theory. We've seen the practice.

Looking at the comment about a level 70 character raises a new philosophical topic. I would think at level 70 the character is starting to get a bit old and past it maybe. Business are reluctant to hire 70-year-olds in the workplace. Yes, they're experienced, they know the shortcuts, but they're slower than at 20 and less able to grasp new concepts.

So if you're not going to cap levels, it would make sense to have a built-in attrition after a certain level is reached. The number of deaths you've been through starts to have a negative effect on your performance. At level 70, you have the know-how and experience, but you just don't pack the same punch you had at level 20 no matter how many hours you spend at the gym and no matter how many healthy salads and lean proteins you eat.

Could be an interesting twist.

Ack! Don't think you'll get much support for this. No-one wants to feel forced to stop playing a character, especially when it is a direct result of the amount of time you've spent playing the character!

It may be realistic, but it's not fun... (for reference, how many games do you know even mention your age? Not many. And I expect the amount where age has a direct effect on gameplay is even less...)

And Death penalties suck. Period. There's a reason Guild Wars and WoW are more popular than EQ and CoH. I think Death Penalties are a huge part of that...

No level cap !

I think if you used the pre-cu SWG system with inprovments like.
A. have stats dinamic for example if u use a 2-handed sword you develop Xp in that skill, But u also develop a gain in strength at a rate of 80% accuracy 50% dextarity 40% ect...ect...while the stats have a degeneration so you have to play to keep those stats high !

B. SWG only worked because of the good crafting ! This is a must

C. Don't make it so ppl have only 2 classes to develop for each char. just have your primary class and let them develop any way they want ! if a fighter wants to develop some healing buy or make an idol ( for example ) and learn how to use it. though it probably wont be that efective because of the slow energy regn. a fighter has. I think you can control the class posibilities by only being able to hold 2 items at once.

Sorcerian actually took age into account. I remember playing certain characters while just raising the skills on the ones I really wanted to play, since there was this one quest I wanted to do but it required an insane amount of "vitality" to open the doors there (looking back on the game, the terms didn't make much sense, but I was young enough at the time that I didn't know what "vitality" was yet, i was only like 10 when I played it). By the time I was able to do the mission, all of the characters I used were like 70 and feeble-looking (except for the elf, who only looked like he was in his 20s). But did it feel like a bunch of geezers doing the mission? No. It felt like a group of older, experienced adventurers getting together for one final quest, since they were the only ones that could do it.

I see leveling as a way to bring my characters higher up so that I can compete with other peoples. Also higher levels mean that I can kill more enemies and do it faster than anyone!

Sarcasm Sir Skullcrasher?

Your argument sounds more like an argument against no level caps, than an argument for it.

I'll take a shot at seeing a positive aspect of leveling, although I'm a pretty strong opponent of levels in general.

I have a friend who explained her interest in the endless chores of Animal Crossing by comparing it to a Bonsai tree. It's the long term, patient, measured experience of cultivation she plays for, not how much money she has or some obsessive sense of completionism.

I think that aspect of character development - Long term customization and cultivation - is often overshadowed in MMORPGs by the emphasis put on min-maxing and the gear/level treadmill. But if the use of levels as a doorway to bar people from content is removed, I think they could be effectively used as a way to measure your progress in this process of 'cultivation' - rather like keeping track of the age of your Bonsai.

The important point is that an older Bonsai is not inherantly better than I younger one - it is just more 'customized' and likely has more 'character' - it has had more work put into it, and that should be recognized.

My problem is if we had contests or shows of Bonsai where only those over 100 years old were allowed to be seen - this is just arbitrarily limiting our experience, and I don't see it being positive for anyone.

Excellent comparison Sisyphean. I like it!

As this discussion is amazing, I had already prepared some lengthy post... but don't worry, you will be spared. I have problems continuing to write it and it's only half finished, so it may never see these forums. However, I want to make some quick notes on some of the theses that have been made so far: I will name them "Organic Development" and "Meaning of Level". I personally want to add the thesis of "Flexibility" to this discussion.

For starters, I agree with zwei2stein mostly, on the limitations that levels pose. But I see the system accomplished in Guild Wars so far as one of the best available: Instead of being confronted with an all-out complexity from the start, you have time to play around in an area (locality- and level-wise) that forgives errors more readily. Of course you could do similar things with full-fledged characters from the start, but the training area would have to be totally harmless. Being lower-leveled within a lower-level environment that has some stuff restricted (for example monsters not having skills at all, limitations to skills etc.) will feel much more challenging and thus have a much greater learning effect than being full-leveled in a designated training area. At least, that is what I think.
But I'm drifting apart.

The thesis posted most, as far as I can recount, is that of "Organic Development". Not that anyone but me named it that way, but I find this name suitable: I mean to describe with it the notion of developing the abilities of a character by actually using them. I like the idea, seriously. It is realistic, it allows for a great development. But it's not for Guild Wars, imho.
It is, for one, technically prone to the factor of time played. So, technically, a character can out-max each and everything by just being played long enough. This is a) clearly a sort of Time played > Player skill, and b) it defeats the purposes of Role-Playing altogether, which is always either 1) developing your character through experiences to be a specific rolemodel, or 2) fitting your character into a group by taking up a role, e.g. providing specific support that no-one else in the group can give at that point. Now a solution to this problem has already been noted (by all, or almost all of the people that brought this up): Dulling down of skills. Either by time (which would give more impetus to the Time played > Player Skill factor) or by usage of other, "un-aligned" skills (So a swordfighter would have his swordfighting skills dulling down over time while he is practising fire magic, for example). This, however, would defeat the Guild Wars Core Concept of "play with anyone, anywhere" - at least I see it this way. What use is teleporting and being able to play with every single player on any of the worlds, if you cannot freely play what you want, because refitting your character in a new role would take months? I really take GW as having a role-playing-concept along the lines of my aforementioned 2, not like concept 1, which is applied by most traditional MMORPGs.
A third solution would be a straight-out limit of development. So, you play and develop, and you know that there is a ceiling or cap on your development. It is basically up to you, if you develop a swordfighter, a mage, or a fighting mage. But you have only so-and-so many level or ability increases, and if they're used up, you'll be able to refine your skills along those lines, but you won't be able to gain some higher general level (so if you're Swordfighter Level 8, you might be able to learn some neat new Swordfighter Skill over time, but you won't be able to increase to Level 9 along with limitations to what you can learn - or how quick you can learn it (having an intertwined system of level requirements and experience or whatever cost would help here. Say, a skill is available at level 6, for 5000 XP. You can get it at level 5, though, for 10.000 XP, at level 4 for 20.000 XP and so on.) Well, where was I? Ah, sure. The problem of such a limited system is again, that it is very strict and would possibly punish a "wrong" decision too much.

Some players have mentioned that Levels should mean something. "Meaning of Level" is an old concept, maybe the oldest there is. It sets Level as Power, Ability, Skill and Bragging Rights. It's Level 124, playing 24/7/52 beating the crap out of Level 35 who can only play 10 hours every weekend. It's "I have already played 15000 hours, and so I righteously own your ..., you 500-hour-player." It's power. People like gaining power. Getting stronger. Don't look at me. I know the more "ideal" power gain in Guild Wars (improving in your own knowledge of the game and your own performance/skill putting that knowledge to use) very well. But some people prefer the more "material" (in this case taken as opposite to "ideal") gain or reward.
Problem with this system is, that Guild Wars is designed with Casual Players at least kept in mind. They have to do it, and I really like them doing it that way. That means, there is the creed of "Player Skill > Time Played". And that is exactly opposed to the "Level 100 should mean something and a level 100 should be able to own anyone level 90 or lower."
This is clearly shown in Goast's post:
It is a completely different conception of skill and power. What Goast calls "where I have a certain number in my profile" is an additional tactical layer to me. Limits, distribution, allocation. It's tactical, and it is a great element, as it puts more power on the thought/knowledge/skill side over the "time played" side. (No offense meant, Goast, but the wording was just too good to not use this to make my point here.)
Of course, I'm largely exaggerating here. I don't take on anyone specific, I just try to sketch some sort of archetype, which, by its very definition, has to be extreme, as every actual conception would be a compromise between possible underlying archetypes.

Finally, Flexibility. Of course, this is where critics will smite me, as this is my personal view. However, I want to add it here. I see this as a core concept of Guild Wars: You're flexible. You aren't artificially limited (look at teleport for example). This goes well with the 2nd named Role-Playing model: Fitting into a group by taking a specific role. I mean, I have seen the first days of Guild Wars, and it was much more like a traditional MMORPG back then. You could reallocate your attributes everywhere, but you could only take down a certain number of points that filled up again by gaining experience. This system was dropped in favor of the (better, because more flexible) system of being able to freely reallocate attributes while in a designated "peaceful area" (outposts, towns, mission points) while being unable (except for increases) to do so while in a "fighting area". And seriously, I like it. You don't have to be afraid to develop into the "wrong" direction, as you can quickly shift to another priority. Of course, this is done by numbers - after all, it might be the simplest language of the world. But keeping in mind that Guild Wars is designed to appeal to Casual Gamers more than most other MMORPGs, with the concept of Player Skill > Time played, with the flexible design to be virtually everywhere and not having to travel long times before getting somewhere... it's what makes it appealing to me as well. If I know I only got an hour to play, I will instantaneously strike out every game that takes too long to get into or in which I cannot achieve anything within an hour in my mind. Advantage of GW is, yes, while there are high-end areas taking multiple hours (which is good), and missions which take definetly some amount of time (which is good as well), there are things to do like hunting an elite, doing a quest, which can be easily completed within little time, and in GW, how long you take for such a thing is independent on where you logged out, as you can travel to virtually anywhere within a couple of seconds. And if I have a little more time, and a group of friends is forming for some high-end stuff, I can be with them in a jiffy, ask: "What is needed?" and relocate my attributes accordingly. Of course, this is also something dependant. But actually, it is my choice - albeit limited by my ability - in how many different ways I want to be able to play my Warrior, my Ranger, my Elementalist or my Mesmer. I can be a tank or a damage dealer, or an interrupter, a spiker or a nuker, a support character. If I actually have outfitted my character (suitable skills available, suitable equipment), it takes an adjustment of my skill bar and my attribute allocations to fill out one of the other roles, if it is required.

So, to summarize. I am strongly opposed to the point of "Level should be the determining factor of everything". This would be taking away tactical layers and giving too much emphasis on time played. If this is really what you want, you might be better off with a more traditional MMORPG. The moment a lower-level character has no possibility to win over a higher-leveled one (within certain limits - whereas where those limits lie would be another debate), no matter how perfect he applies all of his skills and how few the actual actions of the higher-leveled character are - that is the moment in which a game has lost it's tactical component and comes down to be a game of comparison of time spent within.
I do like the Organic Development thing, but I don't see it coming for GW. It's not designed this way, as far as I can see it. And it doesn't have to be, either. I have seen good games that tried to do this, and I liked those that I played pretty much. To think of a perfected variant of this system is... amazing. But for Guild Wars, for the game I play online with friends, every now and then, and sometimes hours over hours, I think, a system of flexibility is best. And flexibility is easiest realized by numbers.
But after all, I see leveling as something that might be a possibility to scale stuff for beginners, like it was done in Factions and Nightfall. Leveling is something that we do in order to enjoy the game. We do it by just playing, and just playing and enjoying is the greatest good that we try to achieve with everything we do in-game. The moment that makes levels matter too much is making leveling the greatest good, or a greater good than enjoying. Then it is priority. That is a danger. Making something that is done while doing something that we "want to do", suddenly becoming something we "have to do" in order to be able to do what we want to do, that is introducing grind.

Hope I didn't get too far off topic, and hope that my text is understandable. If any questions arise, please, ask. Of course, this post is always taking into account that levels up to some point equal power. If the flattened power curve that has been spoken of is realized as I imagine, it might be really interesting in GW2. Now this post is longer than what I had originally started to prepare. If you are interested in the original planned post, please message me, I'll send it to you.

@Sisyphean nice note on the arbitrary limiting of content there. Although with the younger/older bonsai and "not inherently better, but more customization, more character" this reminded me very much of Guild Wars as it is nowadays. I do have a problem with the long term character development, though, as I see it standing against mechanisms of flexibility that make Guild Wars as it is. But I have usually argued that it actually is development - just abstracted from the factor "time". But that would be very difficult to explain now. At least to me. In english. Written. So take this as a side-note. Just didn't want to leave this uncommented.

@Sisyphean - The beauty of the bonsai in your metaphor is hardly the number that represents level. Rather it's the nuance of Attribute point allocation, skill selection, player prowess, etc that make the good players good. Their level doesn't even begin to do their abilities justice.

To me it's pitiful to get hung up on this number as a gauge that supposedly represents "the beauty of the bonsai" when experience proves over and over that it doesn't. There are plenty of level 20 players that are BAD at playing the game.

I must still maintain that there is nothing more to "level" than a beguiling number that moths fly towards just before they're zapped. All of the value of earning levels is actually the increase in other stats, be they HP, Energy, AP, SP,etc. Why not have a game design that brings those characteristics into prominence over a misleading numeric stat?

Jkyarr, I must not have been clear enough. Earlier in the thread I wrote a post about how I think levels shouldn't exist - Suffice it to say I agree with your post above 100%, I was merely trying to see it from the other side.

My point was, the test of your efforts at cultivating your character should be how unique and individualized it is - each level that passes should be another opportunity for you to nudge things closer to your personal vision. Thus, like the age of a tree, level should not be an absolute limiter of quality, but merely an indication of how long someone has had to cultivate that character.

In the current paradigm, each level is nothing but a notch in the prison cell wall, marking off time until you're free to do what you want - be it PvP competitively, raid, or whatever. A new level doesn't mark another stage in your character's unique course of growth, it's just a tiny step on the pre-determined path to baseline 'maturity', a bump in the only road that leads from start to end game - nearly endless repitition of the same few actions.

We may be able to explore off the beaten path on the world map, but taking the road less traveled with your character's stats often leads off a cliff, and only rarely to the kind of adventure and discovery we ostensibly play these games for.

Thanks for your thoughts Caith-Avar. I wanted to interject that I view GW as a much less "level centric" MMO than any other I've ever played, in the sense that Attribute Point allocation and skill selection are more important factors in determining success (once you're level 20) than is level. At a certain point in GW the content goes from being graduated by level, to graduated by geography. There are good and bad aspects of using such a tool to provide graduation, but I think that's the case with any stat one would use to graduate the content. It seems to me a HEINOUS step backward to hear that GW2 is virtually eliminating the level cap. There is a caveat to my concern however... If they graduate the content independently from usage of the stat that we call "level" and then just include a number for the sake of marketing to the level watchers, I would feel ok with an uncapped game design. It's when I think that they might make decisions where Level is central to the game design that I get a sick feeling in my stomach. They have a much more diversified method for dividing/providing scaled content in GW1 based indirectly on attribute points, skill availability & selection, and geography (sequential map progression). The more factors they can bring in like attribute categories and number of skills, the more diversification/specialization there can be, thereby providing more and more layers/bifurcations/graduations in the content. As you said, such a system is much more flexible (and complicated) than a straightforward increase in stats by reaching the next character level

I would still point out that even a system based on skill or attribute development would have to cap at some point... Take fletching arrows as a ranger skill for example... how many graduations of that skill or XP in that category could one earn before either the resulting affects are so powerful that they cause imbalance in the game play (killing any foe with one shot from your uber-arrow for example) or were limited by practical design ( I spent 3 months earning the 8,565,525 fletching XP I needed for the 100th graduation of that skill and I got 5 more damage per shot out of it!!!

A game design with unlimited levels/attribute points is an exercise in diminishing returns. The player has to pay out more time, effort, in-game cash, etc to receive an ever more disproportionate and diminishing amount of reward. THAT is the moment when players get bored and fed up with a game because it's design got too annoying ( becoming a Jedi in the old school version of SWG is the best example I can think of). So called elitists who buy games only for the hardest-to-achieve titles, possessions etc shouldn't really be left out in the cold...(give them their "in-game biscuits" but not uber-gear). Did they pay Anet more money than I did for the game? So why cater to them with game design when all they really merit is a "biggest loser" title track. It's all just a contest to see who can spend the most time on the game away from the real world, as many other people in this thread have already pointed out. At a certain point, if the game were going to have value to those folks, it should email them vouchers that are good for IRL pre-paid therapy so they can get over their life-threatening addiction.

I like Anet's "Play and let play" approach, but not if it translates into poor design for the sake of broader appeal. They've not let us down before... let's pray they won't with GW2 (posting to forums that they (hopefully) read and imploring them helps too).

Hmmm--- re-reading it I'm not sure why I thought you meant the opposite... we agree!! w00t!

I see your point in the comment above, but I would say that "the cliff" you mention is subjectively placed by the designers based on content development. From a pratical standpoint they can't develop every possible combination of attribute point allocations and skill selections so that there's some content for every contingency, or balance and plot would go out the window with all the player's interest! However there is some mileage to get out of that road before it all falls apart.

Take for example... Prophecies in its early form... That was a very warrior-centric game from a content design perspective. There were many more rewarding nuggets for those who chose warrior as their early characters... Those of us that chose mesmer ended up deleting our character by the time we got ready to leave pre-searing.... That changed over time as more balance between classes and more content with classes was developed. The same would hold true to a point in a system rich in diverse content. I'd describe that diversification as wide or tangent... and depth (as in moving on with the main plot) is more important, but there remains value in diversifying content (to the "AP allocation and skill selection" level of detail) too.

I know i dont level just to level, but to reach that new armour/weapon/build/area









I'm sometimes called a computer addict, and i just climbed a mountian last weekend lol

An excellent point. The current system is not without it's faults.

Perhaps no/high level caps will make this worse, perhaps it will make this better. For example, with no level cap, there is no baseline, and therefore no grind to get to level 20!

That's one way to look at it, anyway.

Loved reading this thread. Its this type of thread that I enjoy coming to the forums for.

I'll play devils advocate and say that I am totally against the whole leveling of a character as it pertains to what I can do in the game. I don't like games that are set up in a way that I have to be level X before I can a) use an item b) use a spell c) have access to an area. To me, these types of restrictions are more like huge stop signs. Like they are saying "STOP! You are to puny and unworthy to do this!"

One prime example of level restrictions would be the Final Fantasy games. Lord, how many hours have you all spent grinding out XP from fighting the same monsters over and over and over just so you can become stronger and won't get your butts handed to you by the next levels monsters. FF really is set up that the areas are really restricted by what your level is, and, they are usually huge discrepancies between where you are at currently and the next area you need to go. Most times you have to stop the gameplay and story flow and grind out xp. That is annoying as hell and takes away from the whole game experience.

An opposite example would be the Legend of Zelda series. Wow, what a good set up this game has if you really stop and think about it. Firstly, NO LEVELING. Everything that you need to make you stronger is found along the natural procession of the story. You find Heart Containers along the way to give you more life. You find your weapons along the way as well. Usually you gain the weapon in preparation for the next boss you will fight. But that weapon usually allows you to gain access to other items you need as well...like more Heart Containers. I just love the how these games flow. There is very little feeling of "STOP YOUR NOT WORTHY YET".

Back to Guild Wars. Personally I think Anet did a wonderful job figuring a way around the level as access to content mentality. I think gamers have become to used to "leveling" and thinking if its an RPG then you have to level. Anet begins to break that mold but in a subtle way as not to upset what gamers think needs to happen in an RPG. Anet says, "ok, here's your 20 levels and lower end, beginners areas to earn those levels, BUT now that your at level 20, let the REAL game begin".

Well, I just don't think alot of people who play Guild Wars ever bought into that. They still cannot just LET GO of the Leveling mentality. They need to feel like they are constantly gaining something by the hours they are playing. Its sooooo ingrained into us that accomplishment=what level we are that I think that's why Anet is adding the no level cap for GW2. But I hope that they are really saying "ok...we wanted you not to think about levels but that didn't work, you still want them. Now we are going to the other end of the spectrum and saying you can have all the levels you want, BUT it not going to make you any stronger" At least that is my hope.

I think that the things that make you stronger in Guild Wars should be acquired by doing quests and missions instead of "reaching level X" (like the 15 attribute quests). I think this is how Anet will "level cap" us in GW2, meaning that one character will only be able to obtain a set number of attribute points no matter what level they are. Cause if you make characters a little bit stronger each time they level and there is no level cap, well, you would never ever have enough game content to satisfy the higher level people.

In closing I hope that the no-level cap for GW2 will be more of a status or "age" thing than being what we traditionally think of when we think higher levels ie: higher level=stronger mentality.

BUT

Perhaps it would have been better if Guild Wars didn't have levels at all.

Having a level cap of 20 says, "We believe in leveling, but only up to a point." Also, for those familiar with MMORPGs it was confusing. Most MMORPGs expand their levels upon new expansions... Guild Wars did not.

It was a good thing (IMO), but perhaps not understood by the majority of RPGers.

Not to mention, leveling was treated very differently in all three Chapters.

Prophecy: Long time to level to 20, about 2/3 done with the game when level 20. As this was the first game, it was accepted.

Factions: Very short level 20 time (6-10 hours?). Lots of high XP quest rewards. As a result, the "tutorial" wasn't as much a tutorial as a "quick level up so we can show you the REAL game."

Nightfall: More medium leveling experience. But, perhaps too long for people who've been playing Guild Wars for 1 year and a half.

The problem, IMO, is that new players need time to learn the basic mechanics and such before being thrown to the wolves in the higher-level areas.

But old players don't need time at all - to them, leveling up their Dervish or Paragon is a chore.

Hopefully, Guild Wars 2 will find some balance where people can just play the game, and not worry about getting to a certain level. How they will do it, I have no idea.

1. Capping a max number of levels or leaving levels uncapped

Cap it, definately. Uncapped levels would create another form of elitism that us casual players don't need. I don't want all of PvE to become like HA, but if levels got uncapped I can already see the Whammo's "Group lf more, must be lvl 60+"

2. How your outlook on #1 impacts or enhances things like overall game balance, the replayability of content, the development of future content, etc.

I think having a capped level actually leads to more replayability. I know that personally I wouldn't have half as many characters as I do if I knew I'd have to grind them up to lvl 60 as soon as I get to the crystal desert/Mainland.

3. When does leveling turn into grinding?

When just playing through the game at a normal pace isn't enough to be at the 'minimum' level for the current area in the story.

4. When does gaining character levels become inane?

after 20? j/k. Idk, GW is my first mmo, so I've never really experienced the 'fun' of level 21+, therefore I won't pretend to have an answer for this question.

and
QFT and totally agreed.

I have to mildly disagree here, as I personally find it rather helpful to have a low-level area to train the specifics of a new class without being confronted with the full complexity of its possibilities (which would, as far as I see it, also include that you are required to embrace the full complexity and apply it from the start). But I have to agree that someone who has actually played the game already and thus has some understanding of the basic mechanics requires much less time to learn as he only has to learn the specifics of the new class.

Same here, but as I already stated: In ANet I trust.

Uh, if the level is capped at 100, it will have Elitism anyway. There's already Elitism with the level 20 cap.

What if you realized there was no max level at all? Would that stop you from making new characters? If you take away the incentive to grind...

Agreed. I'd even take it a step further, and want to see places in the game where there's a role for everyone, no matter your level. The huge PvP world wars sound like they will accomplish that, but it will be harder in a Mission based area.

When I played City of Heroes, the main goal is to gain levels, to get more powers. The powers were what made your character, and the goal was to be able to fly, shoot laser beams from your eyes, or be industructable, or whatever. Of course, the best powers were only available to the highest level characters, which leads to grind (ie, I want to be able to fly now (or soon), not 60 hours into the game).

Guild Wars turns that whole system on it's head: As long as you have a cap on the maximum number of attribute points, it doesn't matter what level you are. Skills are (mostly) available based on your physical location in the game, not what level you are (some of the PvE exclusive skills are based on Rank, which is like a level).

As long as I feel like I'm not substandard from other players, a no level cap will be fine. Hell, as long as there is a decent solo system, level caps in PvE might not really matter at all.

Yes, I agree, some learning time is nice with the new professions. But, at the same time, during the sneak peaks people jumped right into PvP with level 20 Dervishes and Paragons and had fun. They had never played those characters before, I largely had to rely on pre-builds. Did that make the game less fun?

I want Guild Wars 2 to be the best game possible for the most amount of people. That means pleasing the levelers, the PvEers, the PvPers, the soloers, the role-players, etc.

It may be impossible, but I want Anet to at least try.

See, this is what I was trying to get at. This type of play has been the "standard" every since RPG-type games have been introduced to video games. Is it a broken system? No, not really. But it is the system that people just plain expect when they pick up a game like Guild Wars. And as you go on to say....

Agreed. They are trying to break out of the "normal mode" and say what most GW fans know already "its not the character level that determines how good you are, the the choice of skills and how you use them that defines your worth".

I, for one, LOVE this idea. I think it a new and refreshing approach to the whole leveling thought process.

One thing that I think needs to be addressed in GW2 is armor. When/what will define when/how/where a character can wear better armor? In Prophecies they set up a pretty good system, you got higher armor as you went on to new areas. BUT players found a way around that by buying run's to Droknars Forge and getting the highest armor and then going back to the starting areas. Fine and dandy...until they showed up in PVP areanas with an unfair advantage. So, GW tried to have armor and weapons not dependent on level but maybe they should have made it a tad bit dependent on Attributes.

Agreed. Like I stated earlier, I hope its merely a cosmetic-type thing to prance around with lvl 123 under your character. I sure hope that you don't keep getting progressively stronger with each level or I think the game will go down the tubes.

1) A level cap essentially sets a goal, 'get to this level before you're done leveling and can (ostensibly) start the endgame'. An unobtainable or uncapped game instead makes leveling up an essential gameplay element. It's simply a design issue of where you want to place emphasis in your PvE game.

2) Neither way really promotes game balance, you simply have to design things a bit differently - you balance more things for endgame in a capped game, but otherwise you're balancing for the progression that you expect characters to go through. All it means is that players need to have content available for their level, regardless of speed or steepness of the leveling curves.

As far as replayability goes, leveling content is almost by definition not replayable, unless you have a really shitty game that requires you to replay content while leveling just to gain more levels. That's bad pacing. Future content is simply developed for the model - with a level cap that people are at, you design content for people of that level. No cap, you keep creating new areas to further progression.

3) Grind is reasonably defined as 'having to do something you don't want to do in order to do what you do want to do.' Leveling becomes grind as soon as you have to start repeating content to further level in order to pass the next encounter. That's usually a symptom of bad pacing.

That's really only true in games where leveling in a peripheral goal. In leveling to level games, you don't really have 'level grind' of the same degree because leveling is the goal.

4) That's pretty simple, leveling becomes inane once you have access to and can complete all game content with a character of your level. Any levels after that simply make that content easier.

Peace,
-CxE

Well, beanerman, it sounds like levels will make some difference.

This was posted on Gamona, a German game site. (Thanks to Caith-Avar for sending it to me!) Here's the link:

So, yes, this looks like a step backwards. But, it's still early, and we don't know all the details, so I'm withholding judgement (for now!)

As for armor, I hope it's like Hero armor where it's just based on your level, but is then capped at a point. Otherwise, I'll just walk around in "beginning" armor until I get to the Max place, which always seemed silly to me.

EDIT: Great points Ensign, as usual. May I ask specifically what you think about Guild Wars 2 having no level cap, and if you think it will "ruin Guild Wars", as some allege?

Do you think Guild Wars 2 will have scalable monsters to counter high/no level limits?

I hate to nitpick... but LoZ used geography and event triggers to graduate the content. It's the same mechanism that Leveling is used for, but it's not a level-centric system. I agree with you that I like that type of system much better than the "no non-level-20-characters may enter the fissure of woe" approach. But I felt the need to post a reply because I think it's important that we realize that every game has to implement some system of content graduation. To me the most smooth-flowing, organic, natural means of doing this is event triggers. In most implementations event triggers have been connected with geographic progression or combat encounter progression. Guild Wars does this type of thing when you finish a mission and it automatically map travels you to an area you couldn't previously reach. It important to realize that this kind of progression is actually plot progression more than character progression, unless it's paired with things like loot drops (in LoZ) or XP rewards (in GW missions) that effectively bring the character, his/her armor, weapons, skills, attributes, etc. up to par for the upcoming encounters. The downside of geography and event trigger progression is that once the game is documented (as with our GW wiki) walkthroughs can make the game more like a maze to run (run out to point A, make trigger B fire by killing target X, pull lever Y to drop the bridge and you're out). Untalented, unlearned players can successfully run the maze and get the rewards without ever being much good at playing their characters.

So what if we had to, for example, use Protection Prayers Spells and Enchanments repeatedly in order to earn an attribute increase in Protection Prayers? What if Attribute points were awarded for every X number of target foes you cast them on? Would that force a higher level of compitency and an increase in talented players? Or would it turn character progression into a dull grind? I'm sure there are people that feel both points of view are true.

Bottom line... DOWN WITH LEVEL-CENTRIC GAME DESIGN! There are better ways to let your players experience character progression.

1. Capping a max number of levels or leaving levels uncapped

Uncapped, but a pretty steep diminishing return curve after a certain point.

2. How your outlook on #1 impacts or enhances things like overall game balance, the replayability of content, the development of future content, etc.

I think this should work something like hard mode will in Tyria. One fully done pass through the game will get you into the "nominal" max level - call it 70-85. With the diminishing returns curve, characters at lvl70 would be able to play effectively in the same areas that a lvl95 would (the lvl95 may have a bit more flexibillity or be able to do "fringe" builds at the 70 could not). Replay is addressed by unlocking hard mode at the end where all the content becomes lvl70+.

3. When does leveling turn into grinding?

Leveling would be a grind after you complete the game. You should have a fully capable character and any additional levels would give you decreasing benefits.

4. When does gaining character levels become inane?

For forming groups in high-level areas, lvl70-80. After that it's mostly worn like a title.

Sounds like they feel the need to appeal to the superficial appearance of character progression for marketing purposes... I find that disappointing but understandable... I still maintain that they could have the stat "character level" without developing the game design around the usage of it. That's the best of both worlds.... Appeal is important... pair the appeal of apparent character progression by using a level number (poor design and not representative of player ability IMO) together with a more organic, less level-centric content graduation methodology and everybody wins!

I understand what your saying. I was just trying to give an example of a game where there were no arbitrary level numbers that limited you on what you did in the game. Geography does play a big part in games that have no levels. Another one may be Shadow of Collossus. They character you start with is basically the same that you end with (with exception of the strength bubble).

Mordakai's quote from Anet guy on levels in GW2 re-emphasizes the point that, for most gamers, the whole concept of character level, leveling, and the steady increasing of some sort of benefit you gain with each successive level is soooooo ingrained in us that (most players) cannot seem to let go of. It just doesn't make sense to them at all. Why play the game if your not progressively getting stronger? It is not their fault though

Isn't this kind of like how Dungeon Seige played out? You got better at something ONLY if you consistently did it? Like, If you used a sword your strenght increased and power increased. If you casted a lot of spells...well your magic stats went up. And so on.

Now, I remember when I started playing this I just didn't like it. It upset me. I wanted to pick a warrior class, use swords, and get stronger by a set leveling system. Or I wanted to pick a spell caster and go that route. It seemed odd to me to start with a "blank slate" character and make him into whatever I wanted. The main reason being that I thought I would try to have him prorficient in everything, which would actually make him weak in everything. It took some time but I got used to the new system and grew to like it.

Same goes for the level 20 cap system that ANET introduced with Guild Wars. Yes, it was different. Yes, I initially thought it was stupid and a bit wonky. Yes, I complained about it. BUT the more I played the more I finally began to understand what Anet was trying to do to the whole leveling mind-set that gamers have. I loved it and embraced it and learned to have more fun with it. GONE were the shackles of grinding for XP. RELEASED from the bondage of being tied to a number of levels gained system of getting stronger. FREE I tell you. Anet FREED all of us!!

But sadly, as stated in the article, Anet has rolled over and given in to the masses an are giving us a new leveling system to quiet the disgruntled masses who just don't get it.

Dwayna save us! I hope what you say is not the case.... I must still hold out hope that Anet, while obviously seeking to appeal to... um.. those folks, will stay true to their origins and move away from a level-centric gaming model.

I still hold hope in the term "flattened power curve". While it has been interpreted otherwise, I read the part you marked bold (in the quote) like this:
Difference(50-100) > Difference(100-150) (For those not familiar: The Difference (between level 50 and 100) is greater than the Difference (between level 100 and 150).)
It doesn't matter for that example how powerful level 50 or level 100 is, the point is that the levels above 100 (to 150) are much less "more powerful" than those before, in comparison. I see the example as comparing differences between two sets of levels, rather than comparing two levels to each other.
I draw this conclusion from the image of the flattened curve. Starting out almost vertically, then "lowering" into almost horizontal. The part before that turning point is obviously steeper, there is more ascension, more gain, than after that turning point. So, to me the example doesn't mean anything else than "Level 20 will be much stronger than level 1, but level 40 will have much less advantage over level 21 than that." would.
At least, that's how I read it. I still hope they will figure out some good "breaking point" for levels, some average level to reach and a good way to easily reach it, with diminishing returns afterward.

I hope your right...

My fear is that since "the difference between a level 50 and a level 100 character would be much bigger than between a level 100 and 150 char," that means a level 100 character would be much, much more powerful than a level 20. (!)

Of course, there would be an average level of players that we don't know yet, but regardless, as a casual player the threat of being left behind does exist!

It's only my faith in Anet that keeps from worrying too much. Over and over they've said they're making a game that will reward players the way they want to play it, and so I take them at their word, that they will not purposely screw over the casual player.

If you ask me they should have just stuck with the previous Lv 20 max system...

Agreed. Its all wait and see at this point. But I seriously doubt that Anet would abandon their stand of Skill over Time invested type game play.

And really I think this discussion has been more than just what Anet will do with GW2. I think it also has to do with future games made by others that we will play. Leveling has got to be a very central point that game developers wrestle with each time they develop a game. I don't envy them at all. As seen in some games, if you go to far from what players consider normal, they will not buy, play, or support the game. I wonder if Anet worries about this and is trying to find the "middle ground" where they are pushing the boundaries but slowly and incrementally so as not to scare away potential buyers and players of their games.

Good and interesting discussion. thanks everyone!

I hope that I am right as well. However, if I follow the logic of the curve, it would mean that the highest gain per level would be from level 1 to 2, the lowest from 149 to 150 or wherever the cap would be (without cap it would be somewhere between infinite-1 and infinite, or maybe the curve would actually flatten out to be straight horizontal at some point).
Thus meaning: So: The gain from 1-50 would actually be the greatest, followed by 50-100... and 100-150 (and so on) trailing behind.

I believe to be a casual player myself, and I sure know your worries. But I hope for an average level that is quickly reached. So let's take 150 as cap, 75 as breaking point. So by playing you advance quickly and without feeling that you have to level (pacing is the key) up to level 75, which you reach shortly before completing some major point in the story/game/whatever (as without a story like in GW1, being "through" the game will likely not exist), at completing it or shortly after. And from then on, the game is fully open to you. You will still gain levels, but slower, and with less benefit per level, but you won't require them.
That's how I'd sketch what I think they will do. No guarantees on that, however, just me thinking loud here.

As for casual gamers... the market is finite. ANet knows that. On the hardcore market they would have to compete with all the other, established MMOs. I don't think they want that. They have already made their attempts to appeal to casual players - because that is a type of players that still remains largely untapped by MMOs. WoW, for example, also tried to tap into new "player types" - they used their Warcraft franchise to tap into a new player type besides the hardcore MMO-Gamers.

Would have been fine with me as well.

It depends on what Guild Wars is to you. I'd imagine that having no level cap will make Guild Wars even better for a majority of the playerbase. Otherwise, why would they make the change?

Personally, what attracted me to Guild Wars was the strong de-emphasis on character leveling and progression, and a lot of emphasis on build choices and execution. My game of choice before Guild Wars was Magic; as far as video games went, I was on the downhill slope of Unreal Tournament (I could feel my speed, reflexes, and precision sliding away slowly), and I was mostly having fun playing with the limits of Diablo 2 1.08. Standard Diablo II was insipid - very addictive, carrot on a stick + slot machine gameplay - that stole more of my time than I'd like to admit during college, before I started to be disgusted by boring gameplay that just fed my inherent obsessive-compulsive tendencies with immediate rewards. What kept me interested in Diablo II was how moddable it was, and how easy it was to hack up offline characters. Going into sandbox mode, the game was a lot more interesting - you could roll up a character, play it for a couple hours, then move all the skills around and make new equipment and play a different character for a while, see how that played out, make tweaks. With hacks I could really explore the depths of their skill system, see what was good, what wasn't...and after that, start tweaking the game to see what the limits were. What could be dealt with, what couldn't, etc. Character progression was pretty meaningless, but it was an interesting puzzle of choices and consequences that really appealed to me.

So of course Guild Wars comes along, and offers the idea of a game that takes out the boring elements (character progression) and puts even more emphasis on system depth and bredth, where you didn't spend all your time trying to build the known uber template but instead sorted through all the options available to figure out what the good templates were and why...and then, presumably, you add a bunch of different environments with different conditions. It was presented as this great puzzle game, of figuring out how to build your characters and teams to beat different obstacles, and that was all kinds of appealing. Ultimately the game slid backwards a bit, had to make a bunch of compromises, and had enough different visions that it couldn't be exactly what I wanted it to be...but it accomplished probably 10% of what it could have, which is pretty good.

Guild Wars 2 and an uncapped leveling system? Bluntly, that sounds like more of the same regurgitated shit every MMO has been thus far. That being, carrot-on-a-stick progressive gameplay with lots of shinies to substitute for gameplay. What I'd really want from GW2 is PvP characters in *PvE*, the ability to roll up whatever I wanted to try and accomplish goals - and PvE designed with that in mind, to really push the limits of the combat system. GW2 sounds like it's taking the opposite approach, of simplifying the combat system and replacing accomplishments with carrots. Not that there's anything wrong with that model - hell, if I was a MMO developer and I wanted to make truckloads of money that's what I'd design too. But as a player, that gametype is insipid and I'd rather spend my time doing flash puzzles than trying to kill rats, not because killing rats is interesting, but because killing rats gives me XP and gold.

Maybe I just got old too fast, but giving me a gold star for doing something easy is not something I want to waste my time on.


I really hope not. Those games end up being matters of 'can you get your character to progress faster than the monsters do', introduces effective de-leveling...and honestly it takes away the entire point of leveling in the first place. Scaling world RPGs are really levelless RPGs made by companies with conservative finances and emasculated design teams. Perfectly good games for shaving hours off of your day and days off of your life, if that's what you're into.


As long as they're committed to their financial model of no monthly fees, they absolutely have to appeal to the casual gamer. The key to their business is making licence sales, not heavy playtime per player or even constant player retention.

Put another way - spending a lot of time developing extensive, time intensive endgame scenarios is a waste of their time. Their financial department should rip them apart if they tried to do that. Hardcore players that demand a ton of endgame content are a minority of your player base, and you don't even make any extra money off of them - they aren't paying a monthy fee that makes keeping players engaged month to month paramount. They aren't in the business of heavily replayable content, they're in the business of lots of new content, which they can sell as a new game. That means accessable content, expanding the franchise, being easier for new players to get into.

If you want a really deep, repeatable endgame for power users, you want a game with a monthly fee, to support player retention and to keep providing content for those users. It's not about the principle of monthly fees being good or bad; it's about charging users for what you want to provide. If you charge for one thing and provide another, you inevitibly start to slide towards what you're actually getting paid for. The speed just depends on how clued in your business guys are and how much sway they have.

Peace,
-CxE

for all of you still hoping to keep the level 20 system while making *cosmetic* level number increases i refer you to the following if you havent seen the article yet.

there will be a strong sidekick system which will allow a friend 10 (or more) levels lower than you to join your group and get enough benifits which will and i quote

that says even 10 levels will make a big difference not a little difference.

and if the higher levels flatten out some that does not mean all those 75?+ levels you had to get through do not count.

Maybe something else needs to be considered... let's say ANet does have a cap at 100 (ugh)... and let's say that the level 100 is much more powerful than the level 20. It seems to me like they're going to make it so that regardless, the level 100 will not be able to harm the level 20. Even in the world PvP with mixed levels, the level 20 buddies with the level 100 and
winds up much more powerful. PKing will never be a factor. This could be marginably tolerable.

However... I could forsee a problem with level 100s having a massive PvE advantage, which would blow goats.

Back on topic... we level out of habit, that's it. Sadly, it's such an ingrained habit that it's extremely difficult to envision a substitute.

I think you miss the point of whats really behind leveling... Who cares if the number is kept in the game and increases over 20? The design is the important factor. Sidekicking and the significance of the relative strength of each level number in progression are symptomatic sidebar discussions. What lies beneath the number? Why write the game with dependencies on the number that we call character level when there are more significant stats of off which to base the design? I for one... want more from the experience of playing the game than to be judged by the players and the game design logic based on a number that I can manipulate without the actual talent to play the game well. Judge me for how well or poorly I play... not for what the number next to my name says. Graduate my access to new content in the game based on how well I play... not on what the number says.