The Dilemma of Level vs Skill - Quotes from ArenaNet

Found this on TenTonHammer posted a few days ago:

The Dilemma of Level vs Skill - How Old Became New Again
Summary of the article: Since MMORPGs became a mainstream medium, players have debated the two primary methods of advancement. Which is better? Is it the level-based system that is so dominate in today's MMORPGs or is it the lesser used skill-based system? This has been a strong subject of debate on many forums, blogs, and gaming sites for as long as the genre has existed. This week Cody "Micajah" Bye investigates the two concepts and gathers input from some of the brightest minds in the gaming industry about their thoughts on the two systems of advancement.

Really good in-depth article! Read the article. Below are the quotes from Isaiah Cartwright if Guild Wars is your only fancy, though I promise you are missing some great insight:

Link is broken for me. Edit: Nvm working again.

I'd like to believe that was still true. The number of broken builds they've left in the game since EotN tells me otherwise.

I dont know how much skill is being used now a days... a lot of it just seems like button pressing. I.E. Mind Blast Eles

For GW (especially PvP) it's running a cookie cutter build and pressing 1 2 3 and 4 on command. In WoW (especialy PvP) it takes real skill.

Here's why I think level based games are more popular: in this day and age, people are lazy and want to be told what to do or given such and such as much as possible. Most gamers don't want to spend time tinkering around with all the systems to come up with the best character. They want to be given a build and told how to run it. It's easier for devs to go in and balance, its easier to self identify, and it's easier to play if classes/levels are done instead of skills.

I don't think it has anything to do with laziness, rather the path of least resistance, even though it evolves man hours(grind) sure they may be tied, but TBH the gamers of today and games are built more on addiction. X to z, gives xz+2, god mode, it's why I've always hated geared Dependant games, rather than thought/execution...

Follow the drones, Gw2 will probably be a conforming piece of junk like the new aged games,(no click to move, okay pre 1990) and I'll look forward to SC2 and if any grindless FPS...

My personal favourite is that you don't get screwed over by the 'fixed skill allocation' thing found in Diablo 2 to name 1. Its idiotic things like that that made hacking D2 so necessary. EVERYTHING is geared towards the end-game. Waste 1 point in something early on and you've started gimping your character.

Its far better being able to freely change your build/stats to vary your ability than simply grind to a higher level to allocate more skill points or whatever. Then again given that so many people are willing to fork out monthly fees to grind on WoW says it all really.

What you mention is true, and I agree with greatly it's bs. Then again at least d2 didn't charge a monthly fee. The games the do I have an even greater anger towards, conform to their play model, cough I mean (business model) or be gone in the wind. Grind and addiction nothing else, hooker and sink(the money).

You'd figure in this day and age the multi billion dollar gaming companies would conform but I guess the playerbase/society hasn't voiced a strong enough word yet. I guess we all don't give a shit nor care about how much money we shit out either.

Back in the dark ages Kings ruled, yet the people paved the roads, demanded certain things, and overall had even a vague saying by gustier as to what was right.

They used to have that kind of broad, flat curve in Guild Wars; they took it out in favor of uber-skills and title grind for power. I find this especially ironic in reference to the posted article; they talk about all the other things they tried to do, but in the end they half-heartedly went back to what they originally saw as the problem.

Meh.

The PvP, well, they stopped supporting it, and with that the game got stagnant and died. GvG from near the peak was in a league of it's own, and I haven't found anything else that really compares. But Guild Wars really relied on having a deep skill set to be a good game, and that just isn't the case anymore. Intentionally or not, they managed to make something really good then made it bad.

I think the real lesson is that you can take a game a whole lot of ways, but you have to really stick to it. Making a game with 1000 skills is a great idea, but you need to follow through on it and make sure you get the depth that comes with that idea; because if it degenerates into a game with only 50 skills and a bunch of chaff, you might as well have not bothered.

Dota is more balanced than GW...

Good read.

I'm sure a lot of people appreciate the leveling more than getting gratification from their skill. Getting to level 80 clearly sets you aside from the noob level <50's. Guild Wars bluntly cured me from this.

I've seen my share of MMO's, but the constant longing for me to get to another level, so I can finally acquire skills/get to another area/be able to wear certain equipment...got boring fast. It's feeling far too restraining.

In some sense, Guild Wars also felt too constraining, especially the later campaigns. Because you could only go along the way the dev's intended (mission for mission). Factions made you choose between two paths, EotN did it better by giving you three paths. However, being free in what skills to bring, en being able to swap on the fly gave me some room for personal input.

My dream of an MMO would be something like a sandbox skill based game, something like Oblivion Online, where there are so many thing to do and see, and without the restraints of "no you can't go there yet because you are too weak". However, sandbox games can get pretty boring too when everything you encounter is just another variation of the same old dungeon.

Yup, it's the Flavor of the Month that's mentioned in the article. Why make a build with subpar skills, when a certain combination (on PvX..) enables you to steamroll any PvE area, or dominate in PvP?

Sure, you could give it a go with those subpar builds, making some interesting combinations, but in the end, it all boils down to what build can kill the fastest.

Personally i'm sick of always being stuck at 20. I want to be OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!!111!!!

So, what's the take-home here? They appear to claim that skill > time was one of their attempted "innovations", but a quick look at GW today clearly shows that even the devs don't believe their own bullshit.

What's the problem, guys? Could it be that games of skill aren't as popular with the unwashed masses as games of time investment and stupid grind rewards? Are stupid games for stupid people just better for the bottom line?

Far too many MMORPGs rely on level and equipment and not enough on skill. This is why I like GW, sure many of you will complain about the select builds that don't take skill and allow you to spam or you ust press 123456 *cough*sin*cough* but overall this game does require skill, you guys are just taking the oppurtunity to complain. Think about Mesmers, now that VoR has been nerfed we have seen a decrease in the amount of them because people can't just fire and forget hexes, they couldn't interrupt and now they can't be arsed to work out how. Many classes require skill and it pisses me off when some people just pick out a few builds and say that because these 5 builds don't require skill, none of GW does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Short Many classes require skill and it pisses me off when some people just pick out a few builds and say that because these 5 builds don't require skill, none of GW does.

The problem isn't so much that those five builds don't require skill, it's that those five builds require no skill to be just as if not more effective than any builds that do require skill. Why would anyone do it the hard way and risk messing up and failing if they can just play ezmode, roll their face on their keyboard, and bring home a win?

Anything that allows faceroll gameplay is bad for a competitive game, because it turns the entire game into facerolling, whether or not more complex methods of play exist.

Solution: Forced randomness. The game will randomly pick your skillbar from a long list of builds that work. But if they put that in HA, i can't imagine the Niagara falls of complaints.

You appear to be an expect on this topic. Perhaps you should write more.

I think I just wet myself

Very good point. You can't gauge skill unless everyone runs the same thing. But most people don't judge skill like that and instead judge skill based on who can exploit the best (IPWNU) build. This is why anyone running a ranger or a blind build automatically thinks they are better than any warrior in GW. Its also why Mesmer's think they are way better than Ele's. Which is never the case.


It has nothing to do with being lazy when it comes to level/gear based games. Many people just like to have a big number and really nice and hard to get gear that gives them great benefits. Its something to work towards and a really great reward once you have that shiny new item.

GW is the same except that the items don't give you any advantages at all. They just look nice. As for people not wanting to spend time learning on their own, well I agree with this for the most part. Thats why the majority of GW players and all gamers in general use sites like gamefaqs and wiki. They watch videos on youtube and ask questions on forums.

Why spend months learning something someone else already knows when you can use their idea and get the benefits faster instead of getting left in the dust and called a noob for not knowing the current info.

Also skill based games only work when the skills work. With gw's constant buffing and nerfing of skills its very hard to enjoy anything skill based since its always changing. Atleast with level/gear based games, content tends to stay reliable.


I do not agree with your opinion of D2 LOD. Part of the "skill" of LOD is learning the builds, which you do on single player. You don't start a build online if you don't know what you're doing. There are so many ways to learn a build its impossible to screw up unless YOU make a mistake, like pushing the buttons to fast due to impatience. Also you can waste more than 1 point and it will not gimp your character. Waste more than 9 skills and you will screw the build up. You need 100 skill points for a full build. Everything beyond that is extra.

But I agree that being able to change attribute points whenever you want is one of the coolest things about gw and I hope more games adopts this option.



This made me chuckle.


This also made me chuckle and is completely wrong. Dota is not very well balanced. Certain characters with certain skills and certain items break the games balance completely. I used to play Dota for a long time. There are tons of ways to (Cheat) in that game by breaking the balance with items.

Not to meantion that some characters are underpowered while others are overpowered.


I don't know about you, but I wouldn't play a game like that. I like stability and being able to choose what I use and how I play. A game like that would remove my choice.




Game are supose to give players more options, not take them away.

Wait What?
In WoW Raids most classes have a more or less have one set build for each spec for optimal damage, your not helping anyone by bringing an inferior build.

And PvP is req a nice bit of resilience and is gear based and some of the brackets are poorly balanced, I mean come on the DK and pally comp tore apart 2v2, It should never have been in pvp, they said it from the start as hero classes were not ment for pvp.


Yeah I know Gw has some problems but Wow is jsut the same

...until you randomly get an Echo Mending build.

More importantly, different people are talking about slightly (or significantly) different kinds of "skill", or a different concept if you will. It is my understanding (because I've never played these, /boo to me) that HA and GvG require different skills, similarly to low- and- end GvG, and the list can go on.

But whatever the kinds of skills people are talking about, I'd like to point out that the simple fact of putting "skills" at the core of a game changes the nature of the game, by changing the nature of the fun taken from the game. Even if some people want skill for "win" while others want it for "feeling competent", both directions move a game from a "leisure" side to a more "serious" side (usually called competitive).

I don't think the game that many PvPers are asking for on Guru (i.e., the logical continuation of GW's original vision) would be called a "game" in the sense most people see it. Sure it's still fun to the minority that have the passion, time and abilities to compete, no one gets killed, and few people could make a living of it, yet it's a big departure from the kind of "relaxation" that most games give.

I don't think we can talk about "level vs skill" without talking about the kind of skills involved. I mean, even in the "skilled" world of high-end PvP, it can be argued that there are things like "levels" (be it guild rank in GvG, PvP titles, how many capes you won, etc.). And in the world of "levels" (other MMOs) there are skilled people (I'm always amased at the amount of icons the WoW UI has...).

Funny how we live in a world (human civilisation) where we HAVE TO position ourselves, be part of the "skilled" or have the "level". It's so difficult to look at it from a multi-angle point of view like GW does. Which makes me ponder: how did the GW design did humanly evolve, i.e., did the 3 Anet cofounders took their decisions based on a popular vote among GW designers, did they set targets to achieve (i.e. population growth) or was it simply a set of small steps with no global direction? I mean we, players, judge this situation from our end of the problem, with the perceptiong given by the end-result, whereas Anet may have had slightly or totally different objectives that we're ignorant of.

Just my 2.34$ ...

Its fairly easy to understand what synergies you need to make a powerful build, the problem is quite alot of them require you to completely gimp yourself early game, and after masses of grinding through with terrible skills you eventually reach lvl30 and have access to your best skills. I've no problem with how D2 worked regarding 1-6-12 etc skill levels. But i just hate how you can't reallocate anything, ever. Ok maybe you can safely allocate a few skills elsewhere, but thats still meaning you've underpowered yourself, especially on builds where theres alot of skills that benefit it. Recently i've been playing a Summoner on it so all the skills i need came at low levels and the skills 'required' itself don't account for much more than 65 skill levels so theres plenty of leeway.

Not to mention the game is almost unplayable on your own when you reach Hell where immunities to certain things can seriously screw over some classes. GW is obviously very focused on Teamwork and since you can change you just change from say a Fire ele to a Water ele when you come up against Destroyers, or you can stay Fire and rely on your team to cause the damage.

Linsey's modus operandi seems to be aimed at making this aging game stickier without directly adding content (like MOX). The zquests were her go for PvE, now she needs something for PvP, which is why I think Sealed Deck Play will be coming in the next update.

She has already stated that she does not want to fragment the PvP base any more (by adding more PvP types like Costume Brawl always on), and I doubt the content patch is going to just be skill balances. So how else could we get "PvP love."

Multiple times I've read Izzy and the founders, devs etc. say one of their biggest mistakes was having an epic amount of skills. It steepened the learning curve, it made balancing far more impossible in only PvP, and until PvE skills split off it made balancing horrible there too. Sealed deck play just seems like it is the obvious answer to freshen PvP.

There is a third option which the article ignores: diversification.

Instead of increasing the power, or increasing the skill level, it's also an option to add whole new functions to a character. Well established since the early days of Shadowrun Pen and Paper RPG and prominently featured in games such as Oblivion. The player has a character which hits a dead end when it comes to relative power, but he absorbs all the class variety into one persistently grown character.

So instead of abandoning your main character and start a new Lvl1, which always bears the chance of the player leaving right there, the game could encourage the player to immerse himself in playing a whole new role. The primary class is then as meaningless as the secondary class and freely interchangeable. Especially GW, with its tightly knit powercap, huge class diversity and a playerbase already used to the idea of constant reconfiguration, could heavily profit from that.

There is but one player to each account, which is what the game should acknowledge.

Then i would cast it one my party and try to keep it up wile wanding!

That was always ANet's problem:
They do such great talking, but the implementation never lives up to the hype.

This is especially true for skill balance. The same person, Isaiah Cartwright, also said more bluntly on the Wiki that players love imba skills and blowing stuff up.

And then we got the EOTN PvE skills and carelessly designed PvE skill versions. And then added a lot of "optional" vertical progression to all title tracks.

Was this just throwing players a bone to gnaw on until GW2? It for sure was not the latest revelation and revolution in game design, rather a step backward.


Skill based vs. level based and horizontal vs. vertical progression is an interesting topic, but if the creators of such a game in the end give in go back to the roots one really wonders if they actually know what they are doing.

Remember, this was supposed to be a PvP game, and it turned from PvE to be even more specific into a PvE farmer game.

So many responses to this story here and at other sites that have linked to the article seem to be confusing the meaning of skill being discussed. The overall subject of level-based vs. skill-based advancement does not relate to a person's playing skill. That is something else entirely.

Most of us are familiar with level-based character advancement. Nearly every computer RPG has incorporated it. Computer games have their roots in table-top RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons which introduced character levels as a way to simplify book-keeping. Rather than having to track dozens of attributes independently, these games reduce it to an abstract concept of a level-based tracking method. As a character does more (gains exp, etc), they become more powerful, and the character level is a way to help simplify and track this advancement. As their level goes up, they'll become better at fighting, stronger, healthier, smarter, more adept, etc.

However, this concept of character levels is fundamentally ludicrous. Characters themselves should have no concept of a level. Do they suddenly go, "Gee, I feel like I'm level 12 now!" That seems rather preposterous, even for a fantasy character. It also breaks form from the foundation of RPGs: fantasy stories. Tolkien didn't write about a 20th level Elf Archer named Legolas fighting groups of level 15 orcs, nor did Fritz Leiber write about a 20th level Rogue called The Grey Mouser wandering the backstreets of Lankhmar.

There is another approach, however. Instead of using the abstract tracking method of levels, a computer game can easily track each stat and action independently. Computers offer the ability to do this without bogging down the gameplay as it would in a table-top RPG. This method of individual stat tracking is generally known as a skill-based advancement system. This method of advancement tracking offers a far greater degree of flexibility in character evolution.

For example, a player who wants to focus purely on melee combat would likely apply (or see via use/training) small incremental changes to their skills related to that style of fighting. However, as a result of this, they would not gain improvements in other aspects such as ranged combat, magic, or possibly character interactions. Overall character prowess can still be measured (total increase of all minute increments, how many skills are past a certain threshold, etc), but the system no longer needs to rely upon the outdated concept of character levels to track this advancement.

I for one would love to see GW2 take this kind of approach. GW already has taken a small step in the right direction by limiting levels to 20 and making the bulk of the game play relate to non-level-related pursuits. A skill-based system without any levels whatsoever which also allowed completely refundable points like we have in GW1 would offer gamers a virtual Utopia for character customization and flexibility.

However, convincing gamers to abandon their precious level-based advancement to which they have grown accustomed is no easy task. For many players, levels provide bragging rights. Also, by this point too many have no doubt been conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to now crave the level-up *ding*.

Kalendraf, good that you step in. "Skill based" is indeed usually not referring to the player's skill. I would like some games that really reward players for skillful gameplay and combat, i.e. taking the combat and stat system of Mount & Blade to MMOs would be interesting

To give some examples of what is commonly known as "skill" based systems:

Ultima Online, Darkfall and Star Wars Galaxies are using a skill system, often with certain max levels and caps on how many skill points all in all you can acquire at maximum.

Level and gear based and much more vertical progression games are EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Aion, LOTRO and the majority of MMORPGs nowadays. They are all more or less flavors of the so-called DikuMUD system.

Your earlier reply came while I was typing up my previous post. At the risk of straying from the topic at hand, I'd like to comment about this statement.

For a great many players like myself, we were attracted to Guild Wars not because it was intended to feature PvP, but rather because it had No Monthly Fee. We craved an online RPG (or fantasy action game) with decent graphics that wasn't going to extort $15 or $20 a month from our pockets.

For many of us, GW was also a natural step forward from Diablo2. That game also featured PvP, but as everyone knows, it wasn't the reason most people played. D2 was all about killing stuff fast and collecting the loot.

No doubt ANet quickly realized the popularity of GW's PvE far exceeded what they had originally expected, and they likely also discovered that a large contingent of their PvE player-base consisted of former D2 players. As a result, ANet had little choice little choice in broadening their plans for the PvE side. Satisfy your customers - it's a basic business premise.

Back to the level vs. skill advancement discussion...

D2 and GW both are similar in the fact that they have levels and also feature some skills that advance. In D2 skill points were closely tied to level. In GW, the power of certail skills advance with reputation or faction. In D2 skill points were primarily gained by leveling. In order to improve skills, a player had to continually level-up, which promoted grind. I think the GW method works better by offering players a chance to improve skills gradually by working on a wide range of pursuits (quests, bounties, etc) which are not connected to character level.

you're certainly in a good mood today aren't you? I think you are trying to act smart (and failing) but just coming off as an elitist asshole. You seem to think the original GW was a "smart" game and that it has been "dumbed down" since. It wasn't, it hasn't to much. Build Wars was till there, it is still here now, there are just more skills and ANet are busy building a game they hope is better and more manageable than this one.

I get what you mean. I never had a problem with set skill points because I'v always researched builds ahead of time and made multipul accounts, each with 8 characters, all with different builds. I think thats why it doesn't bother me. Because you can have hundreds of characters if you want.

As for hell's immunities, I get what you mean on that too. The only real character that has a problem with immunities is the sorceress. But thats why we have Mercenaries. A2 Merc's allows a sorc to run through immunes like they are nothing depending on the merc's gear. (even during chaos sanctuary)

As for leveling and adjusting skills. Thats only a problem if you play alone. Online you can bugrush/glitchrush from normal to hell and then power level in A4 with a group til 75-80. Then bounce over and do ancients and then baal runs. Being able to "leech" off others allows you to save up all your skill points and distribute them at once at level 90, or whenever you want. So it makes things easier than playing through the game normally, in which case making special builds is a real pain.

With guildwars, we don't have immunes exactly. Maybe immune to certain conditions like burning but destroyers still take initial damage from fire magic.

But see the big difference between guildwars attributes and diablo skill points is this, Gear. In D2LOD we have gear that increases our skill total to certain skills or all skills. So if your windy druid has +5 to wind elemental skills, it won't do you any good to switch up to shape shifting skills or summoning skills. Gear in that game is harder to come by than gear in guildwars since you only need a different +3 superior rune and 2 alternate 20% HRT/HCT mods.

You can collect the gear you need in GW much easier and much faster than you can in D2. So its logical to be able to change up skills and attributes since thats how the game was made. Not all builds work in certain areas and not even heroes make a difference sometimes. But in D2LoD, any build will work in any area because of mercenaries and items.

So depending on what type of summoner you are, you either want to go poison nova or bone spirit, or were wolf/were bear or hurricane. (fire druids aren't as good because of immunities but windy druids are the best for PvE.
Throw on an enigma and you are set.

Oh, how I would love the ability to teleport around in guildwars!

My guess is you're one of those people who try running "easy" split builds only to have not the slightest idea how to properly use tactics.

Sure, the Mind Blast Distortion bar is 123123123123, but it's still a split character that needs to be positioned correctly to be effective. You can't run 6 of those and expect to win (believe me, I've tried). Maybe playing that bar is "too easy" for people in the top 20, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority (perhaps 95-99%) of the Guild Wars population is absolutely braindead about playing it in a GvG setting.

There's a lot more to winning than simple micro. Microing a bar is sometimes not required to win games. The game is a lot more about tactics and cooperation than anything else. See: [rawr].

OK, maybe I'm just dumb, but I really don't get the practical difference.

As I understand it, a "skill-based" system in this context is a game that rewards skill points to bump up your skill, like Ultima Online (or Dungeon Siege)?

I never played Ultima Online, so it's hard for me to understand how this actually worked in practice: it sounds like you randomly got skill points for doing repetitive tasks. If that's true, I can tell you right now why that system never caught on: It sucks.

Who would want to grind up a character like that now? Leveling offers (potentially) more player choice as you decide where your points will be spent. Of course, if leveling grind just replaces skill point grind, then it's really only a cosmetic difference, with no real game play difference.

I'd much rather see an article on player skill vs Leveling, as I think that's what most here assumed this article would be about.

Honestly, who really cares about an antiquated system of pigeon-holed "skill-based" advancement anymore?

To me, the best thing in this article was this quote by Fallen Earth's Hammond:

"I would love to see a game that used a social mechanic where you have so many XP each day and you can give them to whoever you want (excepting other characters on the same account or whatever other limitations are wanted) so players are rewarded for being helpful or generous and encourages social interaction (which is sort of the point of MMOs). Or a strictly usage-based system (which some games have used) where skills go up when they are used. Or maybe a social system where the entire game levels up together to face game-wide threats."

Not sure I like all these ideas, but it would be nice to see something different from "kill, kill, level, kill, kill, level...."

EDIT: doing some research on Fallen Earth, it's going to have "skill-based advancement", with no fixed class system. So, I guess that's the big difference between skill-based and level based designs: classes.

Although, then, shouldn't the debate be titled: "Skill-based advancement versus Classes"?

Its nice to have multipul forms of progression. Attributes and skills and levels are all different types of progression. It keeps things interesting. Now lets remove levels and attributes and skill progression and what are we left with? Mario or the Sims?

So maybe our characters no longer have progression scales and instead its our abilities that get better. So if I kill 5000 xp worth of monsters my attack gets better. But thats the same thing as character progression, just done differently. Maybe if I use a skill 100 times it gets better. But thats the same thing just done differently.

Ok so now we remove ability progression and we have gear progression. Items get better. But we already have this in many games and people complain about it. So we now remove item progression.

What are we left with? Progression through events? Thats the same concept. We beat this mission and our character gains HP/DMG/Armor. So we remove event progression.

This does not work for RPG styled games. Hell it doesn't even work with some other games. CoD4 has progression scales, so does MGS4 and many other games. People LIKE this kind of thing because it gives them something to work towards beyond the content of the game.

I can beat the game a hundred times and still keep on working to max out my level/skills/attributes/abilities so I keep playing the game longer.

The alternative is unthinkable. I'v never played a game without any type of progressive grind. Thats like a FPS without any guns or a Racing game without the option to gain new cars or change the gear ratio's.

How does a game world get harder over time if your character doesn't? Progression over time? Well then thats Time>Skill and thats pretty much level progression which is a grind.

Ok so maybe we have gradual progression. As we get farther in the game, our characters automatically get more powerful. Well that removes a serious element from RPG type games.

I hear people say, "enough with levels and such" but I'v yet to read a reasonable solution. What is it people want? Fun? Balanced? New? I don't even think they know.

What did you think of the quote I posted?

You still level, but for doing different things:

Like players rewarding you with skill points for helping them. (it would probably not work because of you could buy two accounts and level yourself).

OK, then automatic levels after time spent playing (not sitting AFK)?

Not sure anybody would play that game, but it's an interesting one.

Perhaps the best idea is a game where you only need to level ONE character, then you can make a new character (or remake your old one) with new skills, class, or whatever.

No grind, but still get to try out all the cars, to use your racing-game metaphor.

Skill based systems have something in common with Guild Wars attribute points:

You have a limited number of them to spend, and some hard caps on the max number you can spend on a certain skill/attribute.

Ultima Online has a 700 skill points cap, and initially 100 was the maximum level of a skill, "grandmaster" rank.

So you could chose to have 7 GM skills or 5/6 and some lesser developed skills. Your choice.

To level up a certain skill like swordsmanship, you had to fight with a sword repeatedly. For magic, called magery, you would cast spells. Crafters would craft items, in leatherworking, tailoring and blacksmithing - some of these crafting lines made it at least in name in contemporary MMOs.


The problem is that players are primitive. The same problem GW has: WHAT LEVEL 20 IS MAX? WHAT TO DO NOW???

Ultima Online and Guild Wars were not based on eternal progression and power creep - but people just love this in the neverending progressquest systems that give them the illusion of progress. With the whole load of crap that comes with that system, like the entire lower level world becoming obsolete and all that.


I think it just shows that Bartle was right when he said MMOs are designed by noobs, as designers always sooner or later cave in and do things that totally destroy their own design idea, as they did in Guild Wars.

WoW is not far from GW in this regard anymore, they make their game more and more so casual friendly that not much effort is needed to play the game and get rewarded and become a hero of everything, this and that.


I would also like to blame the current DikuMUD inflation of MMOs on the notion that there has to be a trinity of tank-healer-damage dealer. Then there is also the notion that there has to be progression, even if this progression is nothing else but grinding for ages to get + 0,001% more of a stat or whatever. And this crap then suddenly becomes what the game is all about, as it happens in Guild Wars.

The idea of players doing something well, right... real player skill... has no place in such a system.

Well I think that if the gaming community was friendlier then a social progression base game would be very interesting. But as it is now, you could either buy multipul accounts and "power level" or you could "purchase" social experience. Also whats stopping friends from logging on long enough to grant you XP and then logging back off?

If it was a set amount of XP gainable per day, then that would slow the game down too much for many people, depending on what the daily XP cap was. Interesting idea to be sure, but I just don't see how it would work.

Time spent playing is Time>Skill and no one seems to enjoy that even though every single game is Time>Skill even if they don't see it. But that could promote unhealthy gaming habits and unhealthy amounts of time spend in the game to be the best.

The problem with the "single level" game structure is it can become monotone very quickly. With no type of character improvement, it doesn't leave much motivation to continue playing the game after the storyline has been completed and you can't have a game with an unending storyline without character progression. I mean you wouldn't continue to read a book with no end would you? Where's the climax? Whats the point? I'm spending all my time on this game, not getting anywhere, really, When instead I could be on another game, accomplishing personal character goals along with storyline goals.

People love experience, levels and general progression. This is why achievement points are such a hit even though they require so much work. But regardless of the "How", it all boils down to the same thing. If you don't have a character level, then you will have a ability level or a time level or a stage level.

God of War did it a bit different, as you gained experience, you unlocked abilities and as you progressed in the game you gained equipment.

Diablo does the level + skill + gear + attribute progression.

Guildwars does the +Title + money progression. (titles improve skills, money allows you to buy new skills)

Call of Duty and Metal Gear Solid do the Weapon + Ability progression.


One newer method I could see with no levels is an achievement progression. You complete a mission, kill a boss, earn a title, discover a location and gain a benefit. But this would be tricky to do since its ultimately the same thing as level progression, only done differently. When it comes to RPG/MMO type games, character progression is a must, no matter what method you use.
Some are far more popular though.

I really don't understand what the article is trying to say. It seems to be more about RPG game engines and how they haven't evolved much over the past two decades. My response: Yeah, so what? What games have exactly evolved a lot over decades? You're telling me that StarCraft 2 won't feature essentially similar mechanics to the original StarCraft made over ten years ago? And how about the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 game? In terms of gameplay, it's going to be about the same as any other Call of Duty game.

Also, I find it really odd that people want to also demonize the idea of level-based games. The reason why it's so popular isn't because of the public, but because it works. The great thing about a level-based system is that it gives you a feeling of accomplishment almost every time you play, and it also rewards players that don't want to play every single darn day of their lives. Many MMOs put a multiplier on the XP gain if you don't play every day so casual players have a chance.

One of the giant negatives of Guild Wars is that it is extremely stingy about handing out rewards once you get past the casual Normal Mode play. Even though the game claims to be an aggressive skill-based system, once you get past the early parts of the game, then it looks identical to any other level-grinder.

What do PvE players do for endgame content? From what I can tell, it's agonizing title grind. Many of the titles are barely any different in terms of grind than if Guild Wars had stuck to a lousy level system--you end up killing the same crap over and over like you're on some kind of treadmill. And anybody that says that GW isn't a loot-based game should take a look at the huge number of farmers grinding it out for ultra-rare drops. I see zero difference between running a dungeon dozens of times in a row for a Voltaic Spear, and doing a raid dozens of times in a row to get a Tier 5 armor piece. I would say that the entire high-end market wouldn't exist if people honestly cared only about player skill and not the crap they were carrying.

They missed on the number of skills by a factor of 2 or so in my estimation; they didn't have the personnel devoted to really develop more than that. It probably was a mistake to attempt that without the necessary resources. But at the same time, having a very large number of skills, but only a limited number of skill slots, was the singular mechanic that really set Guild Wars apart from everything else on the market. It's what gave it depth on several levels and required deeper strategy when things were diverse.

Yes, it made the game deeper; that also made it harder to learn in some ways, and a whole lot harder to master. It also makes it a lot easier to learn in a lot of ways. But, again, depth is what set it apart. It gave it a very strong contrast with the horde of very shallow, all twitch PvP games on the market.


Do you know anything about WoW PvP? It's very micro intensive, and there's a very steep learning curve from the sheer number of skills each character has; it's also very harsh on new players because of how cooldown focused it is, and how individual cooldowns often have very specific counters that you have to activate in a tight window or die.

It's very prototypical of MMO PvP to be honest; it's a very shallow game without much strategy to it, but there's a staggering amount of things that you have to learn to do right in order to play it successfully.