GW2 Level Function

Source
Source

I was wondering how that curve would look like and tried some calculations.

f(x) = A * log(x) + C

A can be a scaling factor or, if we want to flatten the curve, -log(x), 1 < base < 2
C will vary depending on the attribute. For example, it can be equal to health at level 1.


Let us try to model health.

f(x) = 200 * log10(x) + 100

L1 = 100hp
L20 = 360hp
L100 = 500hp
L200 = 560hp

We can flatten the curve by giving less benefit to higher levels.

f(x) = (-log1.1(x) + 200) * log10(x) + 100

L1 = 100hp
L20 = 319hp
L100 = 403hp
L200 = 432hp



High level cap is imminent. How level should be related to attributes in your opinion? How much difference would you like to see between high and low levels?

I want there to be no difference between level 20 and level 200.

Even with no difference, there will still be discrimination. Example: r9+ groups in HA. r1 and r9 are mathematically just as good as each other, but one will never find a group.

If there is even a slight difference, then there will be horrible discrimination. I mean, try to find a group for an end game mission at level 19.

Now imagine if the max level was 200, and you was level 59. Goodluck ever finding a group.

once it turns into WoW a lot of people will quit, and a lot of people will join. it happens

nice job there C.Kitsune. Seeing as Anet devs have discovered that a lot of people like grind i suspect that the level curve would start easing out at around level 50, heck maybe even Lvl 100.

Seeing as they have advanced the idea of infinite leveling i doubt that attributes would be linked to it.
the difference between a lvl 1 and a lvl100 should be huge. After 100 i reckon every 10 levels gained should be equivalent to the power difference of ONE level before 100.
It should also be increasingly difficult to level after 100...making it unreasonably long and hard to reach anything after oh say...200.

either that or make the exp necessary to lvl up exponential.

After 20, it should just be vanity.

I'd be happy to see them ditch levels entirely.

The concept of levels was introduced into RPGs long before computer RPGs existed in order to help make some of the book-keeping easier. With computers, there is no such necessity.

Players tend to view levels as an oh-so-holy yardstick to describe overall prowess, but the units of that yardstick are entirely non-standardized between games (and thus essentially meaningless). A game with 20 character levels is no better or worse than one with 60, or none at all. Levels don't really describe anything interesting about a game, unless the whole point of the game is to gain levels (which implies grind, and likely sucks as a result).

When scrutinized, levels don't even make sense, especially when trying to describe anything remotely real. Is real-world John a 15th level Engineer, or is real-world Sally an 18th level Accountant? Definitely not. So why do we put up with the nonsense of John's character being an 15th level Warrior, or Sally's being an 18th level Necro? Character levels are a legacy from the early RPG days, and they are something that nextgen RPG designers should have the courage and foresight to drop.

Levels are nothing more than an arbitrary measure for something that can and should be tracked in entirely different ways. In a skill-based game like Guild Wars, the things that really define a character tend to be attributes, health & energy. There's no reason that those numbers need to be linked to some arbitrary measurement called a level. For example, what if instead of levels, characters gained attribute points and health 1-by-1 at much faster rates tied directly to experience?

I agree with this, just do away with levels. Then we can have more content to play in. Instead of getting to level 20, and only having 10% of the game to play in, just do away with levels completely, and leave 100% of the content playable for everyone.

However, removing the level system would possibly move this game into strategy/action.

Given that I have played GW for such a long time; having a level cap higher than 20 would just feel wrong. That is not the conversation here though, given that there may be no level cap in GW2 it makes me really wonder how you can retain the GW feel in a universe so fundamentaly changed.

My main toon has 4,403,362 exp

Assuming you gain levels every 15,000 exp after level 20 you would haved already gained level 304 on your way to level 305. That would be almost 6,900 health given the health increase we already gain up to level 20. Thats an obsured amount of health.

The fundamental problem is making the game have a balanced difficulty. I have trouble understanding the benefit additonal levels provide, save one. The single benefit I see allows the developer to better fine tune different zones for certain level toons rather than others - but that has limits to sanity.

If we want to have unlimited levels then you have no choice but to seperate the health and energy from the equation because at some point the asymptote of the limit will make the next level pointless to obtain establishing a limit anyway.

i am 100% behind this. the problem is finding an alternative.

To take an example S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (FPS free roaming type game) has a real rpg feel to it yet no levels or leveling per see in it. However it does manage that feeling of accomplishment or "leveling up" through permitting access to certain areas or hardware via quests (random or not).

Instead of a big "YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL" you actually get some hardware or find a cache with stuff which then enables you to advance.

Yes i know its action. but maybe if RPGs would solely base themselves on SKILLS available and not the levels of said skills it would be better.

I made a MUD in 1991 that had no levels. Number one question I got, over and over, every day, was:

So what's the point, how do I advance?

Even though I had a rapid point based advancement scheme where you spent those points to gain spells, skills, and stats.

Level based games feel very artificial for immersion focused players, but for 'gamist' players they are great - it is a very easy to grasp solid concept of advancement. Level based games simply make better -games- than non level based, even though non level based makes better roleplay. Better roleplay often makes for a lesser game.

It should, but it won't be. Omniclasm has it dead on. Even if a 20 is completely identical to a 200 for stats, the 20 will be the red headed stepchild of GW2, passed over for any group. This would be more of the fault of the community than Anet, but hopefully Anet realizes that if you implement an arbitrary marking of "I'm better than you because I've killed the same mob of snowmen 1000 times!" the community will use it.

That is my fear, the community killed the GW star

Me and many friends all agree... if they make the level cap higher than 40 we just won't play. What we like about GW is the low level cap.. we absolutely despise grinding.

Anyway, all I can imagine with the infinite level cap is discrimination... If anet decides that they are gonna proceed with the idea fine by me but they will lose some loyal fans.. all that for a few extra dollars.. don't you just love capitalism

I don't think there will be as much discrimination as people think. They have mentioned that along with high levels, there will be a kind of "sidekick" system like in City of Heroes/Villains. In other words, there may be some good benefits for a high level to team with a low level and vise-versa. I dislike the idea of high-level grind as much as the next GW player, but I think we should withhold criticism until we find out more, or until open beta to find out how it works.

Not criticizing, just saying what will happen. And if there is a benefit for taking a low level, then it will simply be...."Lv167 lf Lv5 to level"

a quick serch of the city of heros forum didnt yield any tangable results, what does the sidekick system do in that game as opposed to what may happen in GW2?

How do you know the benefits come in the form of xp? The benefit could be more loot, extra quests, buffs, titles, etc. Besides, no matter the system, or how good it is, there will be players that party solely for it. Is it such a bad thing to have an incentive to party, though?


EDIT: To thunderai - here is an explanation of CoH's sidekick system:

This is taken from http://cohvault.ign.com/faq/index.php?category=3#3_0_11

Again, they are likely not taking the exact system from CoH, but something akin to this. It effectively removes the level limit for those who party, which isn't too bad. Kind of a good idea, IMO, and may be tweaked to be a good thing in GW2.

One idea I've seen in at least one other game was the concept of a skill growing rather than the char.

The idea in that game was that each time you used a certain skill a counter ticked off, you never saw the counter nor knew about it untill you used the skill after it had evolved to the next lvl. Then you began to use that skill more, or to lvl up other skills.

Now this is still a Time>player skill problem but at least it creates more diversity. Take 2 players with 1000hours in the game and they will have totaly different skill bars with each skill being at a differnt lvl. While this would certainly limit the current multi-build concept of GW chars it would add a new form of customizing a char and learning how to use your skill bar to its utmost.

Crazy idea or workable???

Cap will be at least 80 or there won't be any cap. So much has been made clear.

Sidekick system will be used to fix the problems with levels. Kinda like: make a broken system, then add a system to fix that.

I played CoV for exactly 10 hours. Then decided that next 30 levels will be exactly the same as last 10, and cancelled the account and never looked back.

Same reason why I personally find WoW insanely boring. No matter which level you are, everything is exactly the same. No matter which class you play, they are all the same. Skills are also the same.

I don't know about GW2's system, but here's how the sidekick system of CoH/CoV works:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Sidekick

Ignore the bit about Exemplar though; that's another system and it works differently (although I'd say it's great to have both).

2Moons and its koren father are very akin to this in the skill department. Your toon does level but the level is spent on certain skill smaking them more powerfull or provide access other skills.

Hum, so using the other post for information as well.

If robin is fighting a super villian his exp is adjusted as if he was fighting the care bears? That sounds rightfully stupid, but I understand the exp concerns. I just mentioned 2 moons in the other post. I suppose you coiuld do what they do you actually get penalized for fighting super villians when you should be fighting care bears.

The sidekick system has nothing to do with that - the poor content and gameplay does. Simply put, the game sucks, I agree. Though the system is a good idea, I think. You can't pick a game you hate and completely disregard everything that game has to offer. This is the problem with people hating on WoW - just because they don't like the game, every feature (which there are a ton of features, both good and bad) must also suck. This is not true for any game.

I don't know how you get that from the description. No. The sidekick's 'power' is at 2-3 levels below the hero they team with. If said super-villain is many levels below the hero, but still many levels above the sidekick, then yes, he will be easier. If the super villain is several levels above both, he is still a badass and will likely wipe them both. This mimics a classic hero battle in the sense that Joker and Batman may be equivalent, but when Batman is teamed with Robin, the Joker has to deal with two 'nearly equivalents,' and generally loses. Robin on his own would have no chance. In no case does the Villain become a care bear, they become overwhelmed by numbers (and 'teamwork').

That comment about Robin trying to take on The Joker solo made me chuckle.

The whole idea of "sidekicks" does not sit too well with me, but that may be simple bias (sidekicks are annoying. All they do is get captured, tortured, nearly/successfully killed, saved/buried and then the cycle starts all over again. Why cant they just get a job or go back to school and let the saving/destroying of the world/multiverse to the pros?)

I personally would HATE having to team up with a level X and seeing engame or ultrahard level content and it not being any more difficult than killing lvl0 devourers outside Ascalon.

so the more i read this thread the less in favour of no level limit i am. The skill growing idea is far better imo but is that not just hiding the same system under a different format?

One concern I hold regarding the possibility of a nonexistent cap is the ability of players to maintain multiple characters. If the proverbial horse can never catch the carrot, there is insufficient time to try out a different horse. Every moment spent with an alt creates an opportunity cost, and I fear that players will be forced to use only a single character for the sake of staying one step ahead of the sorry-you're-not-good-enough curve.

NF and EotN have already made leaps and bounds in that direction. I truly hope that the developers come to their senses the next time around.

These kind of posts get really old, really fast. I don't know if you are 10 years old or Guild Wars is the only "rpg" you have every played, but just because you can get to level 50,000,000 doesn't mean there will be content just for level 45,000,000+ characters.

Lets take a quick look at a real rpg you might have heard of, Final Fantasy. The level cap there is 99. Does that mean there is stuff for you to do progressively up to level 99? No. You go through and kill the same things over and over again just because you want to be level 99, not because you have to in order to beat the game or a side boss.

Since Arena Net seems to be wanting to make Guild Wars into a real rpg, they are going to let us level up, give us progressively harder monsters to kill. And when we get to the end game areas where people will be farming for the "phat loot," it won't matter whether you are level 80 or level 180 because you will still be able to do it with ease, just maybe a few minutes quicker the higher in level you go as you do it over and over again.



quick edit here:

If you look at the graph of what it means to have a flattened leveling curve that Arena Net has said they are going to use. That line is going up slower and slower the further right you go. So the difference between a level 80 and a level 180 may only be about the same difference as a level 60 to a level 61. The higher in level you go, the less reward you are getting. I do wish there was a level cap as October Jade mentions, if you don't have something to stride for, there is less time to try some thing new.

You have absolutly no idea whatsoever what roleplaying is, do you?

Get off your lazy ass and find a decent tabletop or larp group. Afterwards, I might give your idea's of grind/leveling being roleplaying enough attention to call you down again.

Wait, am I to understand that you don't like the idea of 'having' to level, and thus grind to get better, and you dislike the idea of a low level being able to tackle high level content? Isn't that, ya know, counterintuitive? With a sidekick system, level would make a difference only when the group as a whole is low level. When partied with a higher level character, the whole team can tackle harder areas, thus flattening the levels and becoming more dependent on player skill.

This would mean monster and character levels wouldn't mean much of anything, and leave room for monster AI to play a bigger role on what is considered high-end content. Combined with the idea that there would be little difference in power between a level 100 and a level 200, and you have a very balanced game - the better you are and the more people you know, the better you'll do. It also means that you don't have to worry too much that your level 6 whatever isn't going to be able to enjoy more than just starter areas.

I honestly think a well done sidekick system would work really well and differentiate the game from the grind kings out there. Key point here - "well done sidekick system." Obviously if it's poorly done, it won't be worth the code it's written in. I personally feel the CoH system isn't all that great, to be honest, and could be done much better.

To add to my point, this kind of system would mean it would be more beneficial to lower levels for a high level player to exist, than it is for the high level player. This would mean the incentive to reach a high level would actually be primarily to help others. The level number becomes more of a "Hi, I help newbies" than a "Hi, I'm better than you." Again, only if it's done well.

No, they aren't as good as each other. Most of the time. The rank 9 has about 100 times as much experience with successfully playing HA than r1. Maybe even 500.

Not every one gets smarter with experience.

I'm glad you agree with me on most of my post except what a "real" rpg is. I see you conveniently left out the part a little ways down on that page you quoted from. Since in a computer game it would be hard to let people create their own story, they create a broad one for you that you go through, choose what side quests you want to do, and more than likely save the world.

Sense when does not commenting on a subject constitute an agreement? There was little to your post I didn't comment on anyways. While I agree that current technology does not support a true role playing computer game, you imply the only thing keeping Guild Wars away from such is a lack of grind & high level cap, while any role playing game worth the name has no grind, and small focus, if any, on levels & level cap (yes, including CRPG's - Elder Scrolls for example).

What should be done with GW2 is, instead of a high level cap, a level-less system should be used, with heavy focus on character development in areas other than combat.

This actually happens in City of Heroes. My lowbie characters there get asked by high levels to 'inverse sidekick' them so they can work off that game's version of death penalty. In CoH - after level 10 if you're character is defeated you gain a sort of XP tax. Until that tax hits zero half your XP is lost to pay it off. But if you can get back to below level 10, the pace of working it off increases. Or so those higher level players keep claiming.

Likewise, whenever friends are on I find my low levels getting sidekicked and dragged into end game quests. It's quite a challenge to play a level 4 in a level 40 zone... even if your hit points, energy, and damage are equal to a level 38 due to sidekicking - you only have the skillbar of a level 4...

Now, at the same time there is a large faction in the CoH community that will leave a PUG if a sidekick is brought in, and who despite that inverse sidekicking system I mentioned (it has a name, but I forget it).

So we will probably see both results in GW2 if they include a system like CoH has.

There's already one huge difference from that and GW2 - from what James Phinney said, the DP system GW has is a fundamental thing that will not change. In other words: DP won't be a problem, nor will it affect xp in any way. Also, if the higher levels have very little power difference from lower levels, I don't see how it can be abused that much, honestly.

If those are the biggest problems with the sidekick system in CoH, it looks like the very nature of GW will see to it they won't be big problems in GW2.

If levelling up yields less and less health/attribute points, it becomes more and more a meaningless carrot.

The level of grind for a new level will increase, the reward decrease.
Then better do it without levels.

It is not that they are needed. Prophecies would have been so much better if much more areas were balanced for level 20. Starter areas are a waste once people are levelled out of them. And if you want to fight on even ground, you need to be on the same level, there will still be differences that give advantages and disadvantages.


Hard mode revived Prophecies missions a bit, still feels pointless for other reasons play the "Dry Top" in Maguuma or whatever it is called in hard mode.


I think the problem is that a lot of GW players basically want WoW light* or basically love level grind for the sake of levelling up. They like to grind, and ANet will probably cater to the standard MMO crowd than to do their own thing - which they oh so often promise...^^

*Even WoW tops out at 60/70 rather quickly if you want. They also introduced "faction grind" to get away from char development solely based on levels. See how Outland green items makes epic items from Azeroth so superfluous that it is just laughable, and you get the idea why they try to get away from level-only-based progression.

There will be discrimination.Even if the benefits are terribly small.

Why take the a Warrior when I can take a Warrior+1?

RPG's have always been known to be number crunching.By adding even the SLIGHTEST advantage to another player will cause this to happen.

Given that we got PvP modes without DP already and consumables to almost make DP meaningless in PvE I am not too sure that the DP mechanic will stay outside of GvG.

No kidding. That's why I said:

Of course there will be discrimination. There always is, and it's impossible to stop. Though compared to most games with high level caps, which is almost forced discrimination (you get no benefit teaming with others not around your level), the sidekick system seeks to squash that.

If you want my honest opinion - WoW blows GW out of the water in every single aspect - including graphics, which in WoW are considerably more consistent style-wise.

But it's the gameplay, which is linked to one single attribute - level, which makes it unplayable for me. I've played a total of one month over 3 different periods, made it to 70, then finally left out of sheer boredom.

Same with CoV - everything is level. All game mechanisms (including sidekick) is about level.

Some believe that grind = rpg. I, myself, am waiting for insta-max PvE rpg. Kinda like PvP in GW. Where grind is not an excuse for "sorry, we ran out of money and time, here's 5 more absurd titles to grind for next 2 years".

But a game, that is designed around RPG gameplay, but doesn't throw everything out and replace it with levels.

Original GW came very close to that. The only problem is - WoW (since it had largest playerbase so far) corrupted more people than anything before, teaching them that there can only be grind.

There's only one problem. There is a small number of hardcore players that will deal with any grind, and do nothing but grind. But that's not the majority of MMORPG population.

WoW became such success because they realized that people who level endlessly must not be catered to. So instead, they focused on everyone else.

And these "everyone else" will only grind once in their lifetime. If a new game comes out with level-based mechanic, it'll get really old, and they'll burn out much faster, regardless of content.

There's also a bit of reality to consider. WoW gets cited as successful model. But the numbers for American/US region are less than 1/3 of entire WoW population. It's only big in Asia - same place where Korean grindfests were invented. GW is a no-name there. And unless it'll have some really hard-core grind concepts, it doesn't stand a chance there even with new models.

So it better provide something so incredibly, new and revolutionary, that it'll blow everything out of the sky with room to spare. Because leveling - it won't have even remotely the same effect as in subscription-based games. People misunderstand what it means, since they compare it to current GW gameplay.
That's not how things work.

In level based games, everything is level scaled. If such approach is really cool, what will happen once armor will require level 100? People here dislike grinding till r5 of norn titles. How will requiring 2000 hours improve that?

To anyone saying levels don't matter: Go into HoH, and ask for a group as unranked, but say you have UAX. This is what sidekick system is - temporary UAX.

I remember the way Asheron's Call 2 worked. While still having levels for certain purposes, you upgraded your skills directly with your xp.
Basically you put earned xp directly into one of your skills to increase its rank.
That was a pretty fun system since you didn't have to wait until the next level to get a bit stronger, you were continuously improving your favourite skills whenever you gained xp ^^

Maybe Anet should take a look at the White Wolf system?