Is levelling anti-immersive?

There's some good discussion on the mechanic of levelling going on here.

We're always talking about maximising immersion, and SotA - more than any RG game we've played before - is very dependent on it.

Especially notable is the talk about how WoW initially had levelling being very important and later on, less so - to get to the good stuff sooner.

Is this the right approach for SotA? Are there alternatives?

 

Well in reality everybody may think they are a ninja as soon as they pick up a katana but actually mastering it takes time, so i always considered leveling as being immersive.

 

Although I can see it both ways, I prefer skill based myself, if there is anti macroing involved. My point is akin to UO also. I have not played that many games as many of you have. In UO you had a skill system. and a stat system. I am not pushing for UO skill system but I would like a hybrid of it combined with the skill tree. I have been gone for a bit so I am not sure about R19 and what the scrum has produced. My point is the stat system in UO. Everyone had the ability to be smart, or fast, or strong, but not all 3. It limited you to having to choose how your skills needed your stats. It kept us all on an even keel for max stats and it was limited. I would really like that to be the case here. Now the skill you could learn in my opinion should not be limited. You could learn many things, but you have to choose what is important and what will work in accordance to your stats. This will prevent the level gaps and the feeling that you need to grind to be able to compete. I understand there will be overachievers that will grind to try to master most skills, but it will not hurt the newer players so much as the level system. This is just my take on things. Many kinks would have to be worked out but I see this as one of the best solutions. This would allow the person to be able to compete, do the content and be immersed without feeling left behind and forced to grind.

 

If you are referring to the leveling process that increases a characters power, made famous by D&D, then yes. It is absolutely immersion breaking and heavy handed for me.

I like a fine gradient to character power growth in RPGs, akin to skill point gain.

 

Am you know that it doesnt matter wich system you use? Only the way how it is presented to us changes.
Each of this system are progress systems.

 

~Incoming slightly related comparison~

That's like saying Jose Cuervo is the same as Patrón because they are both tequila.

 

I do not like character/npc levels in MMORPG's. Zones or areas are often built around your character being a certain level, players often judge others by their character level and items may be locked to a certain level. However, most of all it kind of feels like your character is "done" at max level and further growth feels limited at that point. It certainly is neither immersive or desireable for Shroud of the Avatar in my opinion. Often the monster levels are displayed too, and that ruins immersion as well, because you'd never be surprised by the power of any given monster.

On the other hand, seeing your character improve in.. For example swordsmanship as you actually fight monsters using swords and overcoming challenges and other opponents feels much more natural and real from your characters viewpoint. I remember some ideas that were thrown around about weapons gaining certain qualities over time as you used them in Shroud of the Avatar. Would not the perfect fit for your sword progressively gaining qualities as you slay Trolls, be that your character itself also progressively gained swordsmanship and possibly acquired titles for his excellent skills?

We could even keep XP while removing levels, if we want to tie skill gain to XP somehow. I do not yet know what Portalarium has in store for their new experimental skill usage system. I'm very excited about that, and need to get my gaming system running again to see in R20.

 

OP, are d100's stupid?

 

I would wait with starting this discussion until r21 comes. If I remember correctly they will try out some new hybrid leveling system there. Or did I misunderstand something?

 

No it is the same.

Given a charakter to progress a level range from 1-100 earnd by xp wich gives you points that you invest to anhance your skills
or
If you have skills wich have a level range, and you get your points in the skill by using the skill, to get points into the skill

is the same progress mechanik.

The way is little bit differen. (by the way skill based level progress is easy abusabel by botting or even macro using)

 

I would like to see something to back up these claims that skill gains are easier to bot than level gains... It seems to me like they would both be easily detectable and/or preventable.

 

The whole skill usage vs. level "botting" argument is a false flag anyways - computer games will always have some players who try to bot/cheat? Main point, even when someone else botting it still doesn't have to affect your own gaming experience.

 

It does affect peoples gaming experience. Especially if you are into the economic side of gaming. Maybe not so much for the casual gamer, but greatly for the hard core gamer.

 

Good point. But your rebuttal still fails to address the first part of my statement... ...The ubiquity of cheaters in any game system...

 

You are absolutely correct about that, thats why I did not respond to that hehe. There will always be some one trying to game the system. And with technology evolving so fast right now some people will always be a step ahead. I guess maybe as players, the only way to help counter that is to be vigilant.

 

Not saying this is the right answer. But a simple answer to leveling is simply to have it calculate behind the scenes but limit the feedback to the gamer. The experience bar and the level number could be totally absent in the game, such that the game simply awarded skill points at points in time (not necessarily predictable) based on adventuring. Then the skill points could still be assigned as is, as the gamer desires, without seeing experience bars and level numbers. The difficulty about this though is "the progress principle." There is a group of gamers that feel strongly that games, and indeed some things in life, must provide rewards on some predictable basis. Complete X and get reward Y. This is why we have level numbers and experience bars. Else the how we get there part could be all invisible, and we could simply go adventure and earn skill points when they are finally due.

 

We have to stay away from macroing up characters, no doubt about that. I loved UO, but the requirement to macro skills again is what's stopping me going back, really. Back in 1999-2001, it was (reasonably) good game design.

The issue with locking skills (or stats) is that for the most part, we're limited to 1 character. In UO we could have up to 5 characters, so you could play a mage, a fighter, a thief and a crafter (and/or a hybrid).

My point with the post is to get past the mistakes other games before we make them here. Can "experience" be only quest-driven? What else can make the game feel less grindy and less about the numbers, and more about "I did this procedure, and now I'm good at this" while not letting us to do the same tasks over and over, and over and over and over and over.

 

I don't know what this means sorry, and I know what a d100 is.

 

sure you don't...

 

There's a misunderstanding/mix up of terms in all of the related discussions. A bot and a macro are not equal. A macro takes some input and, once started, keeps repeating that same input for a specified amount of times, regardless of the reaction of the software. Macro programs are thus very easy to set up and can be used on any given software (your game just as much as your text editor). A bot takes input from the software it is interacting with and then acts according to that input. Hence it is more trouble to create one and they are specific to the use case scenario (you can't use a bot created for one game for another game). The point where using a bot (read not creating!) becomes easy is when the person who created the bot distributes it. There is a severe risk to this though, because the person who is distributing the bot often has malicious intent and intends to gain access to your computer/account. This increased risk (sometimes) works as deterring factor to their usage.

Why am I being this nitpicking about terms? Simple! The claim was that macros have a hard time with a system that gains progress through combat. Since combat, even in it's most trivial (current) form already contains some random elements, a macro is less likely to tackle that task, compared to a scenario where progress is gained by a never changing repetition (e.g. execute ability X on target Y that doesn't move). A bot has no issues with either of these ways of progression, but wasn't included with the original claim either.

Disclaimer:
I have no issue with either way of progression. I simply wanted to elaborate why people seem to have trouble understanding the original statement (which was correct!) by Portalarium.