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

Um... that's kind of precisely why I mentioned it above... There's probably an earlier example of a level in a gaming system than good old TSR... anybody name one?.... Anyone?.... Bewler?

Well this is a stretch, in sporting competitions the podium is organised into "levels". The guy on top is lvl3 and hence better than the guy on lvl2 and 1. LoL.

We level because it's something to do. It's a sense of achievement when you level and it's a way of measuring your progress through a game. It becomes tedious and a grind when you have to farm things over and over to level up for minimal or unecessary gain.

I am afraid it not, there were no roleplaying games as we know them before that ... only wargames which didnt use levels, nor were they about player growth - but which had familiar aproach to combat (rolling dices, hit points...)

I did a google search on leveling and came up short. The wikipedia entry on D&D mentions leveling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experie...ed_progression

One note of interest: "Experience levels fell out of vogue during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s, but began to come back with the 2000 release of D&D 3rd Edition and the d20 System."

I'm not sure exactly what they are referring to... although the World of Darkness RPGs by White Wolf (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) didn't have levels per se, they still had "story points" that you could use to pump up your character. In Vampire you could even kill a Vampire older than you, and get significantly more powerful ("leveling up" if I ever heard so).

Of course, there are games that do away with these elements like Amber, Sorcerer (an indie RPG with no levels), etc. I've played them, and they have their charm, but there is certainly something intrinsically appealing about "leveling". It gives a sense of accomplishment for finishing a certain quest or task, and rewards you accordingly. It gives a reason to continue to play the same character, and not just "re-roll".

Are there cons to leveling? Of course, many are listed here in this thread. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater... we need to understand why leveling is so attractive before we can decide what to replace it with.

EDIT: [slaps nemo] WAKE UP! This is good stuff, believe it or not...

Is it a fair summary to say the appeal of the number is "people like it"? What other value is there to leveling other than the euphoria it pretends to deliver to the power seekers?

Baby out with the bathwater? More like "Demon Troll of Outdated Game Design +4" I cast Augmented Smite Evil upon thine profane flesh! +2 bonus for catching thee flat-footed. +4d6 Sneak Attack damage for my multiclassed Rogue secondary. DIE demon DIE! :-P

ok...ok... kidding... keep the number for the sake if its appeal... just design the game mechanics without it!

Let's hear more opinions... back to the original format... last time I posted a summary it ended the discussion on the thread... let's keep it going!

I believe the main reason levelling is introduced is because of some of the reasons people play online games in the first place. People like to be better than other people. It's built into us. Whether it's killing someone in PvP or being one of the first to have a certain title in PvE. 'Elitism' carries a lot of mostly justified negative connotations but it's also one of the driving forces of a successful (but not necessarily good) online game. A player level offers a simple unified index of 'progression' for players to compare. It encourages competition, even if indirectly, which keeps people playing. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, and in fact I'd like to believe that it applies less to GW players as a whole than others.

None of that addresses levels as a useful game mechanic. If levels represent 'experience' (not skill), it also offers a useful index for cooperation. But that doesn't tackle why character power is tied to level. I suppose it's another incentive to keep playing. The problem is games have to get harder. If enemies get harder via intricate systems of advancing AI and more complementary skill bars, how do you abstract that to a simple to understand scale/index? Equally, if the enemies get harder the player has to get better. But some people are bad. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to finish a game, they buy games for recreation after all. They shouldn't be forced to dedicate their life to the exquisite art of Guild Wars to finish the PvE campaign. So if player skill alone can't be relied on to match increasing enemy difficulty, what do you have left? Statistically improving characters tied to level.

Levelling is a social construct. By having levels, you are able to communicate capabilities, that may not have been understood on the basis of a name alone. I'm reminded of Monty Python's Holy Grail, where a group of knights encounter the fuzzy white bunny, thinking they could make a stew out of it; if only they knew his troo level was twice theirs! Then they could've brought more heal potions.

There's also a psychological aspect to having levels. I believe that many people may be using levels to compare their accomplishments across different games, and I am supposing that this is the reason why ANet wants to say that GW2 has un-capped levels. To these people (who I myself used to be like), a game with 9 levels is less appealing than a game with 90 levels. It's just psychologically affective; "there's only 9 levels? I'm gonna get bored fast! But this one with 90 levels, there must be a lot to do there--probably everything that the 9-level game has and more."

This leads me into what I'll put forth as "grinding". For the most part, I would agree with what people have been saying. I'll add that grinding levels could be ones where you gain no skills, e.g. you get a skill at level 85, then don't get another skill until level 90. Those in-between levels are just grinding. Of course, a cheap way to eliminate this appearance, is to make non-linear level
progressions (which GW has). If you're gaining skills every level, then I'd say there was a reason for making you game have that one more level.

interesting points bbb... I don't mean to dominate this thread with too many responses, but I did want to bring up a tangible example that is somewhat contrary to what you were saying about skills, PvE, and leveling.

I think its a very difficult line to walk as far as content creation goes in the sense that (as you said) you have to make the content challenging enough to the point where it's entertaining and an overall satisfying experience to the customer who paid for it, yet you can't make it so challenging that people have requirements imposed on them about how often they have to play or how good they have to be to succeed. But let's look at the reality of my experience playing Prophecies. I got down to the fire Island chain and spent months trying my damnedest to beat those 3 missions with practically every combination of player that came through that sequence of missions during that time (ok hyperbole)... It didn't matter what group of players we put together, on the whole we sucked so bad that we couldn't finish! (insert jabs like "sounds like a personal problem" here). It wasn't until Heroes were introduced and I had equipped them with good weapons, runes, insignias and skills (bought the PvP Unlock packs for all 3 games) that I was able to solo the last 2 missions (with just Heroes and Henchmen).

My point is "level" is inane, since the number can be achieved without gaining any mastery of the gameplay. Every player I teamed up with proved that over and over for months... Including myself. If the underlying components that add up to be "character level" (attribute points, Skills, HP, Energy etc) are rewarded in such a way that gameplay mastery is taught more prevalently (perhaps by making them rewards for mission or quest completion, (not unlike the current Basic, Expert, Master rewards in Nightfall)) then the number that we cling to as the index for "how good" a player is can be more meaningfully supplanted by the prestige of in game accomplishments.

Of course there is some argument to be made about whether or not completing X mission and thereby gaining W skill(s) or Y Attribute point(s) equates to gameplay mastery... That would depend in part on how the quests are designed and how lucky and learning-challenged the player is. Some could stumble through a mission or 10 successfully and still come away with no techique, but wouldn't it be a more organic system to have to learn through the school of hard knocks before the skills/AP were brazenly tossed around for the ideal that "a something-th level character should have X attribute points and Y skills" because they SHOULD BE that good by the time they reach that level". If we disassociate level and skills/AP in the mechanics of the game or make level the side-affect of the achievements in the other categories, what do we lose? Or is it all semantics? Call it "character level" or "Achievements" or "skill list" or "AP total"... aren't they all the same thing? A means to graduate the content of the game??

One way to handle this is to have no levels and that you just gain skills and attributes. You still can become very strong, yet have no grind like... whew just 732,984 exp to level. I played WOW for a year and a half and it grew pointless to fight so long just for the sake of leveling since there was never an end of the game or a large sense of completion.

Obviously, this idea of mine is not without it's weaknesses, but it does reward work without assigning a leveling system.

i hate levelling.....i wish i could make a level20 pve char

Levels:

Purpose
-to ease transition of players from typical games where level is an issue
-to provide a benchmark for whether someone has gained 100k+ experience

Problems
-"running" missions for a fee gives easy experience
- mindless "grinding" to max level instead of doing missions/quests
- Power leveling players leads to false levels
- Solo Farming leads to severely inflated levels


In my opinion levels should be capped low (20-30) or eliminated as a benchmark. Completion of missions/quests should be used since it is a better benchmark of knowledge of the game and eliminates grinding for levels.

A low cap allows for development of multiple characters.
A low cap allows for more missions/quests that involve storyline rather than upping the experience points of the player. See: Fedex/slay everything in sight quests typically in beginning before level 20, like the Audience with Master Togo Shing Jea ones.

Balancing around a low level cap is easier, since the max level is only a small amount larger than than from the start. This means that there is less mindless slaying of mobs for powerleveling.

Sorrow's Furnace is an example of level irrelevance. People that get run to Sorrow's furnace without completion of the storyline on that character generally have less knowledge of tactics and skills. It doesn't matter if they did it on another character as each character has a different playstyle.

Leveling is not grind. Grind is defined as repetitive tasks. Given a higher level cap, grind inevitably follows if there are not enough missions and quests that jump the player up experience levels. Oftentimes players grind after they finish the storyline, not doing quests.

There are both Story and pyschological aspect towards the thought of levels.

As the general terms defines MMORPGs, though multiplayer, it after all have to have a storyline which defines the Roleplaying experience which is played out through a central playable character whose identity you either asumme(in a single player RPG) or create in (in MMORPG). All RPGs in the traditional sense usually have the player assume a new character as a youngling to the world and take on progessively more difficult encounters towards a great Ultimate goal. The use of levels in the story allows the player to gauge how far their characters have progressed and also to used to gauge the challenge of their next task by comparing the levels of their opposing encounters to their current levels. Hence it also serves as a form of feedback for the player so they can tell if the area/mobs are appropriate for their characters at that specific point of time. However with the introduction of MMOs, much of this has changed and will be discussed in the next part of the psychological aspect of leveling.

Firstly to cover the notion of Grouping and leveling. With the introduction of MMORPGs, other than the focus on the storyline in single player RPGs, there includes the elements where other players are involved as part of your gaming experience. That is to say one will realise that your character is no longer the centre of attention to the story and that accomplishments through challenge can be a shared experience instead. But due to general bussiness model of how MMOs work as compared to single player games, MMOs stay in business by giving players incentive to play much longer than they would normally would with a single player game and they do this with levels as well. However the evils of this method is the implementation of grind inorder to enjoy some of the late content in the game. However most MMOs cope with this by implementing ways for players overcome this as part of a group (eg guilds or partying) since people help keep other people playing the game, this is the essence of MMOs, without interaction and enjoyment that comes through playing the game with others, there will be no incentives for players to play and pay for a MMO than to play a single player RPG.

Now as for the notion of self and leveling in MMOs. As many are already aware, players tend to see their online character as extention of themselves and hence enjoy the possibility of both gaining more control over the the game environment than they could in real life and also communicating with their peers in the game. In this case, leveling serves as an incentive to both allow their characters to excess more content more quickly in the game then they normally would if they didnt put in the time, as well as providing the player with a sense of accomplishment as the magical number appear larger.

In all sense, the balance of leveling and grinding should be considered carefully. In the worse case scenario, a game that has huge amount of grind or allowed players to gain 100 levels a day are not ideal. Ideally progession of levels should be fast enough such that someone who plays the game through the storyline will find enough experience to progress their characters to the next stage of play in the content of the story/quest but slow enough to keep them from going bored to keep playing and "paying". This is usually difficult and hence the most common method most developers use is to make play in the game multicentric either with social play such as fishing/crafting or PvP (with its own balancing issues).

The science of MMOs and player response and behaviour is relatively young as witnessed by the rapid spawning of both new and old genre of MMOs flooding the consumer market with an excess of choice. But none so far has been perfect as per say. Even the largest MMO to date World of Warcraft with 8 million subscribers worldwide is not without its own problems. Ultimately when it comes to leveling in any game, the most important factor is the element of enjoyment while you are at it more than anything else. Fun not frustration is the key.


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Find the game of your dreams and you will never level a day in your gaming life.

I don't think levels denote expertise. They denote time spent playing the game.

As I said in my first post, a possible side-effect of higher levels will be "elitism." But those who judge my skill based on low level are people I don't want to associate with anyhow. So, this could actually be a good way to identify and ignore elitists.

Other than that, it really is just a number. As long as there are things to do, and the game doesn't become boring no matter what level you are, do levels really matter?

It is, of course, all psychological. I'm sure many people ignored Guild Wars because of the 20 level cap. Perhaps those people will come back (and probably be the elitists I ignore, but I can't blame Anet for trying to make more money).

Anet is trying to make a game that will appeal to as many people as possible. Raising the level cap, IMO, will appeal to more than it will turn off. Of course, only time will tell if Anet's choice pays off.

I think leveling is a "natural" thing.
In real life, there is much difference between someone who is well trained and experienced (level 20 in gw for exemple), and someone who is a beginner (level 1)
A max level is a nice thing since every man has +/- the same capacities (in sports, differences between 2 athletes are tiny).
But the cap should be more difficult to achieve, for exemple:

every one could be level 20 (like actually)
then, depending on the XP (2.000.000, 4.000.000, etc etc, that's just an exemple) we should have a few more levels and skillpoints. It should be normal, for exemple, that a 2.000.000 XP monk, who has more experience, would be "rewarded" by having more skillpoints, rewarding the same way the player who has taken the time to reach these XP's. With a max level not very high (22, 24 ?). Again, let's see that as a reward, regarding to people's spent time playing the game.

IMO actually players who spend time playing, killing, questing, helping, are not enough rewarded.

Or, maybe, instead or higher level cap, a new title, depending on the XP ?
I'm proud of my monk beeing protector of the three games. But i'm more proud of the XP, because it's the XP who says "this player has spent lot of time completing quests and killing mobs by helping his guildmates"

Kaiser - I have no doubt that you are a very accomplished player, however the amount of XP you have isn't proof of that. Unfortunately there are (IMO) stupid and easy ways to farm XP in the game that do not contribute to the player mastering the game. Take Death Leveling in pre-searing for example. The players took an area of the pre-searing game and did something with it that was certainly never intended from a design or content perspective by camping & death leveling their way to level 20. This kind of activity in no way contributes to those players abilities to play the game well. Anet decided to take the approach of "let the players play the way they want to" and didn't nerf the ability to death level. That's all fine and good, but you see my point is that I can't tell the difference between an accomplished player who knows how to play well and someone who was power leveled by a fellow guild member or death leveled their way to 20 and has little understanding of how to play their character. This is because no other representation of ability is present in the game other than Level.

For people who like to run up XP, sure they should get their own title track so that there is some recognition, but how is the XP, loot, and gold that you get by raiding with your guild not adequate reward for your efforts? What more would you suggest that you deserve?

I am worried what it will mean for my character if they raise the level cap with "eye of the north" If I'm remembering correctly there was mention of that in the PCGamer article. My problem is that by raising the level cap they either have to ignore the XP that I have already gained beyond level 20 or level me all the way to Level 58 as my XP would require. As a level 58 I can't earn a single point of XP for killing ANYTHING in all the expansions. Even if I soloed Shiro. They can change this paradigm for GW2, but if they bump the cap even to 40 for Eye of the North, I can kiss my monk's progression goodbye.

One final note -- I don't believe it should be the XP that says "this player has spent lot of time completing quests and killing mobs by helping his guildmates"... I think they should implement an intra-guild title system that can be awarded at the guild's discretion to players that meet the criteria. Wouldn't it be more meaningful coming from your guildmates anyway?

In PCGamer, James Phinney says the first goal of Eye of the North is to "extend character development beyond level 20". But, it's unclear if that means characters levels are going up, or if there's some other "development".

I hope they don't do that... Guild Wars should remain level 20 cap. Guild Wars 2, I'm more open to changes, as it's a brand new game.

I have always thought of leveling in gaming as a numerical measure of character growth similar to how we in reality develop. As we live life and experience different trials we (ideally) learn more about ourselves and grow stronger and wiser as an individual. Games use a numerical system because of its simplicity. A true organic "leveling system" such as we live goes beyond the purpose of gaming and even perhaps into the realm of AI.

Currently, I see 3 leveling systems in Guild Wars: character levels, title levels (some titles denote experience such as cartographer titles), and player skill. None of these titles are entirely related to the other. For example a player may be extremely skillful but hold no titles because they do not desire such "leveling". The counter is also true.

I would love to see a game that removes the numerical leveling scheme once and for all. Instead of steadily gaining power through experience points, the avatar gains abilities through how they are played. For example, a player like to play as melee with a non melee "class". Normally this would be asking for trouble but under a system without levels, the character would evolve to become a combat class with all the usual toughness associated with such classes.

Now lets say the player gets tired of close combat over time. Using the same character the player would then be able to retrain that character through spell casting or ranged attacks over time. The close combat skills would dull in the process as well.

Generally, I would like to see a system that allows a character to learn and relearn abilities with some carry overs (such as the close combat strength working in favor of bow usage) through how that character is played. Of course, such a system can lead to excessive grind if handled poorly.

levellin is retarded whatver point u look at it.
especially once u levelled allready 1 char through the campiagn.....havin to level another char through the same storyline again is nothing but a nuisance.
some masochists and no lifers might love levelling all their chars from srat countless times....but a normal human being will not.
if ppl wanna relevel each char....let them do it....but give choice to ppl that dont wanna waste that sorta time to create a level20 pve char.

Personal I like a leveling system,and even in the old days of D&D you had to gain levels to be able to fight main foes in the game.One thing that I have noticed in Guild Wars is the even though there is a lvl cap of 20 it doesn't do anything for your charter.Yes at lvl 20 you have attributes 170,but you still had to do other quest to get the other 30.Ok once you have all 200 atributes it still didn't help yoour charter.

Why do I say that,well your half way through the game and unless you know where to put the right number of attributes it did not matter if you was lvl 20 or lvl 10 because the mob could kill you either way.

Ok say you do know where to put the attributes,the mob still can kill you because it's not your lvl that mattered,or where your attributes are or what skill you have.it's what kind of team build you have.

So where am I going with this?I like the way it was in the old days when you leveled the skills refleck your level.Like it should,yes a lvl 20 is stronger than a lvl 10 as it should be,and lvl 30 is stronger than a lvl 20.Now no matter what your lvl,your charter is a stong as you have made him/her or how ever much time it took to get him/her that far in the game.

Now don't get me wrong,I believe you should not be able to power lvl your way to these high numbers.Or even farm your way to them,but that maybe to much to ask for.So I think,like in some of the games I have played once you have hit lvl 20 for every 5 lvl in exp you only gain one lvl.With that lvl you gain certin skills or attributes and so on,that way the lvl system means something as you gain lvls.

Now on how to gain the experice for the lvl is a totaly diffrent ball game.I like how in Guild wars you gain exp for killing stuff,but maybe the amount experince you gain was to much.Instead of giving you 168exp for killing a troll,if you are lvl 20 or higher you should get 15xp or maybe none at all.That way people who farm to pay for there charters don't get rewarded with power.Like in the old D&D didn't the number of exp double with each lvl. Lvl 1 was 15,000 xp and lvl 2 was 30,000xp and so on,instead of ever 15,000xp you gain a lvl.

Ok that said,what I mean about skills refleckting your lvl is:instead of useing attributes for how strong a skill is,I think the lvl of the charter should determin how storng a attack should be,not where I have a certin number in my profile.If my charter is maxed out I want to do max dammage -armour alignment of course or any saving throws or whatever.

I hope I am not the only one that feels this way.Not all of us that play GW understands game machanics or how if you use skill X with skill Y you can do uber dam on monster A.I guess some people use lvl as a way to measure acomplishment,but It doesn't mean anything if the charter is weak because the person that plays him/her isn't that good to begin with.

So if GW is going to make the lvl cap 100+ or with no cap at all.The best posible way to do it is by ingame exp from missions and quest.instead of your charter lvling to 20 right away to be able to fight the monster content ingame,make it takes the whole game to get to lvl 20.That means by the time you are lvl 20 you have did something,even if it means you road other players coat tail to get there.

I hope I didn't get off topic.