GW2 Level Function

the game should become imo simple more like a classical offline RPG in kind of level system ...

Max Level becomes 100 and with each level up, the player receives some benefits for its stats, which are from class to class different, and then the player receives additional points, that the player can use, to specialize his character and make it look more unique.

Strengh's and Weaknesses should be decided through the classical and much nicer looking "Personal Stats" System, with the difference, that it gets improved with the GW System, to be able to reset points, whenever you want, without having to pay anything for the reset, thus preventing players from failing in skilling their stats.
Als each Class should have more attributes and the overall game needs more classes, i want not see in GW2 any wannabes, like in GW1, but Anet still said, that classes might be totally different then the ones of GW1, not counting the core classes (but for me are Assasins also a core class)


The Classical System, that shows the character stas, that we all know:

Strength, Vitality, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, Courage, Luck, Precision, Technique, Reflex, Flexibility, Endurance, Morale, Dexterity, Concentration
---------
Attack Power, Defense Power, Health, Mana,

That is now a full example, most RPG's cut that off only to like 5 or 6 stats...

Strength: Increases power of physical attacks, lets the player wear more Items and heavier equipment. So higher your strength, so higher also the multiplicator for critical hit damage.

Vitality: Increases defense of physical attacks, raise your defense versus physical negative conditions, like Bleedings, Poison or Blindness, shortening the duration or strength, so higher your Vitality is.

Agility: Increases your Movement Speed and slightly the chance to dodge physical attacks. So higher your Agility, so quicker also recharge physical attack skills.

Intelligence: Increases power of magical Attacks, so higher your Intelligence, so higher Levels of your Spells can you reach, thus letting them become on a natural base more powerful. Only with high Intelligence your spells can reach the highest stage of your Spells and when you want to reach them, you must train your Spells and use them so often you can. No master is ever fallen from the heavens.

Wisdom: Increases your Defense of magical Attacks, raise your defense versus hexes, so higher your Wisdom becomes, shortening their duration or strength.

Courage: Increases your chance to do critical hits with your physical attacks, also increases the sum of adrenaline a melee character receives wit his attacks, so higher his Courage is.

Luck: Luck is an overall allround stat, luck can't be improved by a player, luck will have each day a new randomous stat point, that can go from -100 to +100
Have you no luck (stat in the - area), than it decreases slightly your chances to do critical hits, to avoid attacks, or in opening chests with lockpicks and so on, or general minigames, which rely on luck. Is your luck in the + Area, then this stat slightly increases your chances for critical hits, avoiding attacks and so on. Luck is meant also for this, as a Support Stat.

Precision: So higher your Precision, so higher is the chance to hit your Enemy, even when moving self, or when the enemy is moving, or even both, but that needs really high presicion and also good luck.

Technique: Increased technique enables the character to do better Combo Attacks, better technique also increases strength of Combo Attacks.
Technique of two different Character must be near the same, to be able to perform with a 2nd player(or more) and his character a Combo Attack.
(new Combo System for GW2)
Through Techniquwe, players are also able to so combos together with magicians, not only classes of themelf or melee classes in general, Combos can be linked, when all characters in the team have near similar values of technique, that wil allow them to do a Combo Row of 4 attacks, have the 4 characters, which perform the Combo Atack Row all absolutely the same Technique Value, then they can perform together a fifth finishing strike, the ultimate End, otherwise the Combo ends with the fourth Combo Attack.

Reflex. So higher your stat in Reflex is, so higher is the chance of the character, to avoid physical and magical attacks, but avoiding magical attacks is much harder, which requires also good luck. So higher your Reflexes are, so higher are also your chances to parry attacks with 2H Weapons and to perform Counter Attacks. also Reflex increases the Chance to block attacks with Shields.

Flexibility: So higher your Flexibility, so higher also your movement speed, but Flexibility also increases mainly the Attack Speed of the Character with his Weapon.

Endurance: So higher your Endurance, so longer can your character run with highest speed, so longer can he swim and dive. Increased Endurace also increases slightly the power of personal Life- and Mana Regeneration.
Endurance also slightly decreases durations of negative status ailments.

Morale: Morale is again a Support Stat, like Luck, it can't be modified by the player himself.
Morale changes in rely of the behavior of your character. Do you act like a Hero with your character, then you have high morale, do you act more like a villain, then you have low morale ...
Morale will be important of the fact in kind of equipments, armors. But also on, how NPC's will react on you, when you appear, will they greet you, or will they run from you away cause of fear ??? that are things, that Morale will show ...

Dexterity: Higher Dexterity also increases slightly your Hit chance with Weapons, but the main purpose of Dexterity is to decrease Cast times of physical attacks. Dexterity also increases the power of consumable items and also their usage time.

Concentration: Higher Concentration decreases the chances to be interrupted by physical or magical attacks. The main purpose of this stat is, to decrease Cast Times of Magic Spells, so higher your concentration, so quicker can spells be casted
==============

Attack Power: shows then only the sum from Strength + Weapon Power + eventuall additional Boni through Equipment Upgrades or magical Accesssoires

Defense Power: see above, only for defense

Health: Increase Health, and your maximal Hit Points will raise, to a maximum of 5000 HP (1 Point = +25 HP > 100 Points = 2500 HP, other 2500 HP "can" come through Level 100)

Mana: Increase your Mana Power and your maximal Mana Energy will raise, to a maximum of 1000, 1 point = 5 Energy > 100 Points = 500 MP, other 500 "can" come through Level 100


So, something like this, or something similar I would wish me for GW2, then we would have an awesome classical MMORPG, where the players can skill their characters stats individual and can specialize in certain stats for their Skill builds far more and better, as when everything is made only through 4 Attributes per Class...

Attributes should be only good for the Skills of the classes, not for their stats, GW1 had no real Stat System, that is/was imo really sad, so I hope GW2 gets it. With personal Character Stats, the player has a real feeling, for improving the strength of their characters, with only 4 Attributes, that are not all maxable, you have not that feeling, you dictate with such a system players only to group play, because with that system players are unable to create skill builds, with that you can really play solo, unlike your not a dumb 55 HP monk in GW1 and go farming ...


But imo, its in the moment senseless to discuss for me personaly further about this, as long Anet gives us not finally no clear informations about, how the level, Class and Skill System around our Characters will look like.

Wil characters have further only dumb 4 attributes in GW2, or wil they receive more Attributes, wil be have even stil the attribute system,l or do we something similar, like my posted Character Stats System here, that is similar to how Offline RPG's work mostly ever and it works fine for years and is imo the best choice, when you ant give players a feeling that they can improve over long terms their characters strengths (including over long time getting ever better equipments, that reach over time more and more the stats of being godlike, because thats the highest point a Character can receive, being as strong like a God in kind of stat, skills and skill/stat attributes however.

That are all things, that are yet unanswered by Anet, so discussing over stuff, how it should be is imo wasting time, it makes more sense to discuss over things, where you know, how the developers will make something and what things wil change in compare of the prequel.

In kind of the topic, I end my post now and say simple, thats simple best, when GW2's max level will be 100 ... it's a nice number and its classical, also max level cap of 100 gives the developers much more and better space for balanced enemies...
iover long terms they have then not to throw against us ev er and ever again only unhumans sums of enemies, which will be ever only like 4-8 levels higher, than we can be...thats silly and should be changed, thats best possible with increased max level caps ...

I really hope they don't do this. The sheer elegance of GW's maxed level and stat system solves SO many problems.

It introduced others, but a lot of that had to do with player preconceptions.

If they fold and add mindless level grinding, it's going to introduce a huge number of social hassles to the game, with little (no?) real benefit for the gameplay itself.

Even if the difference between a 'low' level char and a max level character is minimal, players will still act like jackasses about it.

Power creep is MMO poison, and I hate it, I've hated it since the days of muds.

Question: What is the real difference between playing a game to level 20, and playing a game to level 100?

I mean, as long as you are having fun playing the game, who cares what the level cap is?

I believe concerns about elitism are a little unfounded. The reason some people look down on those below level 20 (especially in high level areas), is that it's so easy to get to level 20 in Guild Wars, the assumption is you ran there.

With no level cap, no one will be max level, and assuming people make new characters, there were always be people around the same level to play with.

That's an unfortunate side-effect of players being brainwashed by countless other RPG's using levels.

Probably true. The concept of advancing a player being tied to advancing levels has become a standard in RPG's, and it provides gamers an easily identified measuring stick of their forward progress. However, most players are able to relate to raw experience similarly, and if you could somehow convince them that advancement was tied directly to experience rather than levels, then perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to win over converts.

This I disagree with strongly. I've played non-level games that were very good, and many level games that have sucked. Also, it's pretty hard to do really good roleplaying in a computer game - that's usually better suited for live-action games...whether or not they use levels.

Doesn't WoD use a "fake" level system by awarding points to build skills?

How is that different from "leveling"?

The only true level-less game I played was a game called Trollbabe.

http://www.adept-press.com/trollbabe/about.html

PUT A LEVEL CAP IN, I don't care if it flattens out over time, it ruins the game and people who don't grind will find it harder to get into groups. I don't care if you raise the cap to 80 or so, just put a level cap in there. Going with no level cap would be going what gw stands for. If you are gonna create a game w/o a level cap, dont call it gw2, cause its not.

Actually the opposite. What I listed were not the problems with the sidekick/inverse sidekick system in CoH, but the reasons why players bother to use it.

If GW2 lacks an incentive to use the system, it will go unused. Why would you sidekick a level 4 if you're a level 97?
- Will they get unlocks of the kinds of skills your level 97 has?
- Will their gear be boosted?
- Will the player have the play experience to know how to handle a level 97 mob's tactics?

In CoH, the reason players do it despite lacking those things is that the higher level player, at least in inverse sidekicking, gets a boost from joining a lower level party - they XP faster / easier. CoH's DP system is circumvented by inverse sidekicking. What will GW2's sidekicking allow you to circumvent? If it doesn't have a harsh DP system (and we know it won't, as it will keep the GW1 system - thank goodness for that), then what other burden can they take advantage of letting us get around as a motivator to let sidekicks into our groups?

The problem is going to come down to, what does the higher level character gain from bringing a sidekicked in lowbie along? Is that gain enough to offset the above concerns? How they eventually answer this concern will determine whether or not players end up using the sidekicking system.

CoH's answer works for inverse sidekicking, and that is common, but it somewhat fails for regular sidekicking - the benefit there is only for the lowbie - and so regular sidekicking only happens to 'help a guildie / introduce a friend to the game.'

Level games let players feel they are winning. Winning is a part of a 'game' that is anathema to roleplay. One thing you can see over looking at years of table top RPG trends is that player demand high roleplay systems, but they buy gamist focust games. For years players have demanded complex socialization schemes, rewards for roleplay, removal of classes, levels, and alignments - but theirs dollars have continued to go into games that have a very strong focus on concrete and visible achievement or even victory.

Dungeons and Dragons, for example - is a horrible roleplaying engine with strongly locked in archetypes and very fixed stages of progression. It has very mild forms of customization, and many characters of the same archetype are functionally so similar as to be effectively different only in name. But as a -game- it is probably the best design on the market, for the exact same reasons. Progress is very easy to see and track. Strong archetypes makes it extremely clear to players what role they are to fufill in the -game- (as opposed to the story). Lack of depth and customization serve to make play easy to get into - DnD is a great 'pickup game' requires almost no work to come to the table and jump into. Action focused rules keep attention on achievements that can be easily tracked, and achieved at a much faster pace - allowing for a constant feeling of progress to victory. Finally, the low level cap of 20 means you can feel that you have 'won' the game at a point the designers of the present edition intentionally built to take 6 months of regular play time.

Running out of time right now, but later I'll flip this around for some non leveled games like GURPS, Hero, or Theatrix... which make for great roleplay but have always struggled to define their place as games.

Doubt it, and that is partly what I'm saying. If there is little power difference in a high level, and low level characters can fight as equals when teamed with high levels, then the high level means next to nothing but a number. Then, and only then, will the sidekick system be the best thing that happened. Reason: high levels will team with low levels purely to assist them. Like I said, the high level will mean "Hi, I help newbies" rather than "Hi, I'm better than you - look at my big numberz."

Otherwise, there is no incentive to reach high levels at all. The incentive is pushed toward other character progression. Knowing Anet, there will probably be a title linked to sidekicking lowbies, and that alone will drive those who need pointless incentives like numberz.

Arcane has kickass avatars.

It'll still be interesting how it plays out. I used to imagine something akin to Oblivion. Scaled encounters, scaled drops, scaling difficulty. But since all but the missions/dungeons are going to be persistant, I don't think this could work.

So here's my concern: If each area in GW2 is going to be based on level, and if you are getting stronger with each level, then why make it so it just keeps getting easier?

The only thing that somewhat makes sense is having a peristant/non-persisant mode of play, where the non-persistant would be your GW2 equivilent of Diablo's Hell Mode. And shit, I just had it in my mind why this wouldn't work too well and now it's gone and now I have to catch the bus. Can I get someone to finish my thoughts?

dude, everyone knows, gw2 will be an fps where we have to shoot little rabbits, if you shoot 100 rabbits, you get 1 xp point, after 1337^(n-1) points, you gain a level. There are only 3 rabbits in the game, that spawn every 2 days.

It can be if you have a weak DM or a group consisting primarily of hack'n'slashers. However, it works just fine for roleplaying crowds too. I've DM'ed DnD campaigns for over 20 years, at both ends of the spectrum. It is a level-based game, but it still manages to serve as a perfectly fine vehicle for roleplayers, provided that is what the DM and players want to use it for.

It's changed a lot since the 70's era first edition. Customization options in 3.5ed are pretty sizeable, especially considering all the expansion and d20 products available. The myriad of feats, skills, and custom classes, allow for quite a bit of diversity. If that's not enough, you can apply optional and variant rules from other books (Unearthed Arcana, etc) to change things even more. The game rules allows for rather common things like a human fighter using a sword on up to hyper-customized ones like a psionic half-orc wererat rogue/sorceror/assassin wielding multiple weapons along with feats and skills focused on combat and/or non-combat elements.

You can play it that way, if you're a newcomer, want to keep it ultra-simple,...or you're just plain ultra-lazy.

It can, but the rate of advancement is controlled primarily by the DM and the campaign he is running. I've partaken in some very fun, RP-oriented D&D campaigns that only advanced a few levels in 2 years of play.

Victory over the Evil Bad Guys, perhaps, but that is a common goal for nearly any RPG, whether they focus on mechanics or RP.

Is this a statement about GW or DnD? There is no real cap in the present version of DnD. The game doesn't stop at 20th level. Instead, it shifts into Epic Levels.

No player I've met would ever claim to have won at DnD...even those that have managed to reach 20th or higher levels. They would instead say they've completed this or that campaign, or bested these or those foes. But I've never met any that would claim to have beaten the game itself. That goes for both the hack'n'slashers and the RP'ers.

Kitsune, consider this:

Using the log curves you suggest, they do flatten out, but they never quit increasing. Using a limiting function might be better to give stats a "cap", even without a level cap:

Stat = S * (1 - e^(-k * L))

S is your pre-exponential factor that sets the upper limit on that stat, L would be the level, and k would be a constant that can be adjusted to determine how quickly you approach the limit for that stat. As L get large, e^-kL approaches zero, and stat approaches S. This would be much simpler programming than the log functions as well, and discrimination would be less because eventually the difference between level x and level x+500 will be 1HP. Just a thought.

You know this reminds me of a lesson from math class in which the teacher was explaining geometric limits. Short story is that even the most infiate number has a finite sample size. You should have seem the heads explode when the teacher told the students that as n approaches infinity it can never be more than 1/4. To think that an inifite number can repeat infint enumber of times with ever increasing numbers can never exceed 1.4 was insipring to say the least.

I guess i could be very much in the minority but i for one LIKE grinding away things such as level and what not. I like to see that what i am doing has a purpose and doesnt just mean nothing. I totally understand the position of people that dont want the grind and its a very valid view point. I on the other hand like to have a game that rewards me for the amount of time i dedicate to it as well as my skill that i use. I do agree that there is limits of course but I still like to have high limits (with in reason, i think some of the faction grinds are just stupid).

A free mmo is the best place for something liek this as the grind doesnt cost you money just because it takes a long time. Im not saying this is the best way at all, just my view point.

I disagree. As there is no level cap, there will be no "final" level.

If the power curve flattens (lets say at level 100), then there will be no real difference between a level 200 and a level 101. Or, I should say, the higher your level, the less difference there will be.

The problem right now is that Level 20 is so easy, that of course level 16 are looked down upon by some. In Guild Wars 2, if there is no level cap, then there will be no top. No one can claim to be the highest level (unless Anet announces such stuff, which would be a big mistake).

Another way to look at it is that Levels will be like Titles: They will be prestige that gives slight game enhancing effects, but not enough to "LFG Level 300+".... If done right, anyway.

The level cap should stay at 20.

Even if there is a difference of 0 hp between level 20 and level 100, there will always be idiot 10-year olds saying "haha I'm level 100 and you're level 30, I'm better than you".

And players will naturally rather take a level 50 than a level 20 in a pug, even if there is no difference (assuming same build and profession). The level 50 has obviously spent more time in the game, so they "should" be more experienced (notice how i said SHOULD).

I don't see how the game will benefit from an increased or nonexistent level cap. If you say it's so that players can feel like they are "progressing" all the time, they wont be, because they wouldn't get stronger anyway with logarithmic benefits. If you say its so that you feel the game has a purpose, then you need to go play WoW; GW isn't the game for you.

in GW1, the leveling from 1-20 is just a tutorial, easing you into the game and getting you ready for the real fun (at least in factions/NF). After that, it's as if level doesn't exist.

I like this idea of some people "lvling up" faster in RL. Grinding is the most basic way of lvling up, but you can always level up faster by doing quests. Right now though in all games quests are always either super easy and linear, or they accompany the monsters that you're already grinding mindlessly on.

What if they just put in a harder form of quests called "challenges" that genuinely take skill to complete. These challenge quests must be completed in order and would have a much greater experience gain than normal quests or just grinding. And being true challenges, each successive challenge quest would become harder and harder than the previous one.

With this you could actually gauge a players true skill easier. The skilled players can do challenge quest after challenge quest until they reach a challenge quest that is too hard for them. At this point they can either take the challenge and become a better player, or just grind and quest their way to their next levels.

With this, the truly skilled players can get boosted within a few weeks to their actual skill level, but since lesser players still have the option of grinding and doing normal quests, they wouldn't be scared away from the game.

Also the challenge quests could cover a wide variety of "skill"; it wouldn't have to be just one linear quest chain. There could be challenge quest chains for all sorts of different types of skill like: healing ability, surviving ability, killing ability...and so on.

GW2: Take the challenge!

You, sir, win this thread.

We can all go home now.

I think ARCTAN function could work too for the same effect. Arctan is also a monotonic infinite->finite mapping function.

Stat = S * ARCTAN( k * L )

ARCTAN can even be calculated easily with just fixedpoint calculations

Fortunately, you have the option of grouping with people. You can group with people for missions, even though it isn't required.

The only benefit I can see is higher replayability. People really do get suckered into bigger numbers.

The flaw I see is with their model.

A game like WoW with a high level cap grind etc is based off subscription fees therefore they will draw people who want to play continously (a more hardcore base). Ie: people who play 10 hrs a month will probably feel riped off playing WoW and not subscribe for long.
--> therefore make the game more hardcore oriented.

Guildwars on the other hand is casual player friendly, players will feel they are getting their moneys worth even if only paying 10 hrs a month because of the lack of subscription fee.
--> therefore make the game more casual oriented.

I can't see how a large level cap will help the game since it will alienate the main proportion of people who buy guild wars. If they can't keep competitive then they will be at a disadvantage.

They never were terribly competitive in the first place...

The sidekick idea could be a good way of mixing parties of different levels so would go for something like that.

Its true that levels where to help organising early rpgs and that computer games can get by without them.
Some players will however always judge other players so discrimination will continue to be a way of life for some.

Tle lvl cap of 20 doesn't prevent this I have seen discrimination based on emote level gained from pvp
Through Armor type to skill list and of those only skill list has any relevance and only that in certain areas of the game.
Lists of builds and methods of beating harder game missions has made this worse, to some people there is only one way to do anything in GW and that's what Guildwiki says.

Cap of 20 50 100 or more doesn't prevent discrimination it just gives the lower end player a complex when they see how far they have to go.
20 levels doesnt do that and by the time you reach 20 and realise its just the beginning it doesnt bother you because you know how the game works by then.

I would probably still play the game whatever is decided, as long as I find it interesting.

As a beta veteran myself I'm totally with you there...

However, ANet is going where the money is, and unfortunately, teh money is with the 10yr old kids who want to have that high lvl number next to their name

My only wish is that GW2 keeps its fun feeling, because I'll be sticking with playing with my guild still and not PuGing

And you still can't see the point after everything thats been said about GW2?

It will still be casual friendly simply because it will have no monthly fee... The large numbers are for those that like to grind for them, the game, however, won't need you to hit those large numbers to play it through fully... And looking at my currently necro, with all the experience he's racked up in his 2 year lifespan, he would currently be over lvl 300 in GW (going by 15k Exp per level), and thats playing him very casually

You should get 480HP, 20 energy and 200 attribute points at level 20.
Then 10Health, 0.1 Energy, 0.2 armor, 10 skill points and 1 attribute point per level.
Then add race and equipment bonuses.

But it would be even better if you earned Exp points and you could use them directly for whatever you want. 5000 points to buy HP, 15000 to buy a point of energy, 30000 to get another attribute point, 15000 to get an skill point, etc.

When joining others, the level would be 'averaged'. So there won't be problems about a level 20 joining a bunch of level 200.

Separately, en PvP, players would have fixed values regardless of level. Depending only in profession. Not even in race. Why? Because PvP would take palce in the Mysts, and there you'll fight in 'soul form', not in corporeal form.

Well you can kiss that wish goodbye because they've already said things like a level 100 will be much more powerful vs a level 50 than a level 150 vs the level 100. So, it looks like the power creep slows down to a crawl at around level 100 and then to 150 there will be very little difference or change (probably just hit points at that point). But, I like the OP's calculations I'd be happy with that first one. With max hp at a level 200 cap. I'd rather see no cap to levels and you just show all your experience in your level power. Those that play a lot will be like level 500's or 1000's just something to show for their TIME played no advantage of course.

Some things some of you whinners are forgetting is the buddy system that's going to be in GW2. So even if you are only level 59 and I'm level 150, if you group with me you'll be level 150 also. It will all fall back to what skills everyone must bring in a group I bet you that much. Levels won't mean a thing with the buddy system that much. The descrimination will come from skills and MY BUILD OR THE HIGHWAY type of players just like we got now in GW1.

Lmao this is going to be GW2 not a remake of GW1.

i'd be fine with with a cap of 50, and maybe cosmetic after that. This curve you presented looks like it works fine, ran some of my old calculations after busting out the old TI-84 (gawd i hate math), but i was hoping it would flatten out faster.

How about if after a level - let's say 50 - instead of raising your primary attributes / stats you raised your effectiveness against monster types while keeping your effectiveness against players steady?

This effect should be permanent ( not able to redistribute it )

Example : let's say there are 3 monster types : Plants, Lizards, Corsairs.
At lvl70 a player would have 20 additional levels assigned to monster effectiveness :
Plants +5 ( gives a 5% bonus to damage/defence against plants - or something like that )
Lizards + 8 ( 8% )
Corsairs +7 ( 7% )

This way PvP is not affected in any way from lvl difference
and at the same time a PvE can reach god-like mode against creatures.

If we wanted more challenge these effects could be related ... ex:
Each plant lvl gives a +2% against plants and a -2% against lizards ...
this way players could specialize in a type of monster making cooperation more challenging.