Levels DO NOT MATTER....it's all story baby!, SERIOUS POSTERS ONLY. Options

[Tsukihime]

Were so worried about levels and battles and balanced this and steady that. it's not "This" as someone pointed out so bluntly. It's not based on fighting small things and becoming strong enough to wield the sword of doom. If you were a character going through a game to find the dark lord of doom where do levels come in play? in battles? in solving puzzles? what is the sole purpose of a level? to show growth? what kind? stat? do you ever see people today using levels to show actual growth of a character? to measure the characters growth in society to say "you were shy once, now you're a confident person?" no you see levels used to show the strongest creature you can kill.

Your topic is focused on a very specific set of conditions that

1: I do not agree with. The strongest creature you can kill is rarely represented by your level. In most RPG's out there, there are always people challenging each other to beat the final boss with low levels, under-equipped, etc.

2: removes the generality of the concept of level that you seem to have wanted to discuss and only care about the cases where you must be level 100 out of 100 in order to beat the final boss.

What a level represents is largely based on what the dev wants it to represent.
If he wants it to be a simple measure of how much strength you have, then that's all it is. It would have nothing to do with "a measure of growth of a human in real life", nor would it have anything to do with the storyline. Unless it was designed to influence it as such.

Why do I think level is important? Good question. First, I would ask "what effect does level have on the game?" If I can't beat the final boss when I'm at level 1, then I would say yes, level is extremely important because it allows me to beat the game.

On the other hand, if you were to take my response and then ask me why level should even be used to limit how I wish to play the game - which is what you seem to have done in another post - I would tell you "that's how it was designed, if it doesn't excite you you're free to look at a game that wasn't designed that way. Like a dating sim"

The importance of "level" is fully dependent on how the dev designed the game. There isn't much to it beyond that.

How do levels help you see weather your character has gown as a person in a "real" world? How does a level, a number, a stat change show the growth of a character through a story?

How does it have anything to do with whether you're able to enter the jungle of despair at level 10 or not?

It is also to discuss the concept of does a level show how the character growed as a person, a being or weather they just growed in HP, strength and dexterity.

I really don't see the relevance of personality growth without any proper background.
The only examples you talked about are commercial games where publishers are looking to profit and need a way to get people hooked, and not being able to kill dark lord at level 1.

Devs typically make it obvious what happens when you level up. Or someone usually picks it up throughout the game, posts it up for discussion, and then people do some research. But if level is not even supposed to influence personality (if personality is even IN the game in the first place), then it wouldn't have anything to do with it.

This post has been edited by Tsukihime: Sep 11 2011, 07:34 PM

[bulmabriefs144]

Well, there are several ways of creatively handling no-level system.

1. Romancing SaGa style (also Elder Scrolls). Using skills strengthens skills, getting hurt alot strengthens defense. Unfortunately it's unwieldly, since it's hard to manage the hp. (do you refill it completely if you get more hp? do you keep it the same?)

2. No leveling, but you can find or buy weapons, or learn skills (this works especially, if there are plot events that teach you skills, but not so much if you can run to a store and buy Bolt 3).

3. No leveling, no real armor, battles are tough, and strategy based. This is sorta like the first Vacant Sky, but even more puzzle based.

4. Zelda style. Completely outside battle screen, gains based on powerups.

5. No battles, period. I've seen like one Rpgmaker game like this. It was really weird, if it involved monsters (something like blocking or pushing items toward enemies., or using traps. Or it didn't involve monsters at all (just puzzles), or running from them.

[Adrien.]

i love how people are focusing on eithe balanced battles or "non leveling systems" when its all about how does a level accuretly show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person but greate convo every one

This post has been edited by Adrien.: Sep 12 2011, 11:51 PM

[Titanhex]

how does a level accurately show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person

Well, it doesn't. And it doesn't need to. That's the story and the player's job.

[elliott20]

And again, I patently disagree. I've said again and again, you CAN make it so that a character's personality are mechanically measured. Once again, the best case study on this? Sims 3.

[Titanhex]

Also, what elliott's said.

EDIT: Personality can be measured in a game like the SIMs. However, the character doesn't ever Level Up. Rather they attain status.

The term Experience Point is a fine example of how early developers saw the characters as people who, upon overcoming great obstacles and foes, would become more experienced in life.

While character's can't necessarily show personal growth through combat and levels gained there thru, the story does unveil more of a character's personality and incite personal, static growth. Therefore, it's better to rely on your story and the player's feelings about the character's actions to determine the PC's growth than by any quantifiable means controlled by the developer or player.

This post has been edited by Titanhex: Sep 13 2011, 09:07 PM

[bulmabriefs144]

how does a level accurately show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person

Well, it doesn't. And it doesn't need to. That's the story and the player's job.

By no means should we outright drop this idea, though. It would be cool if you could go with different leveling styles to reflect character quirks.

Example: a golem or magical ooze might start out strong, and actually grow weaker (because they aren't natural creatures, they don't heal wounds, so levellling just wears them out. An angel or dryad might not gain levels through grinding, instead having to locate different temples or groves to level up. And a wizard might need to level up by reading books.

[nohmaan]

There are ways to using metrics to quantify a person's personality.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes1.htm

You could use this a basis for identifying your character's personality and development. This combined with a morality scale should give you a good way to determine a character as something like "chaotic good" or "lawful neutral", etc.

For example, I am INTP at 22% Introverted, 62% Intuitive, 62% Thinking, and 11% Perceiving; and based on knowing my actions my morality is probably neutral. You could easily turn these into stat.

EDIT: You could even use these personality traits to enhance your combat system as well. The more extroverted an individual is, the more enemy aggro they generate. The more introverted, the better their magic proficiency. If they are more impulsive personality wise, they may deal more physical damage, and if they are empathetic healing skills are enhanced. If they have a higher perceiving score, their critical hit rate is increased.... etc. etc.

i love how people are focusing on eithe balanced battles or "non leveling systems" when its all about how does a level accuretly show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person but greate convo every one

This post has been edited by nohmaan: Sep 13 2011, 12:25 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

Also, what elliott's said.

Add to the discussion with your posts. Just agreeing with someone is not enough.


I don't think levels do show the growth of characters in games at all really. Not in a technical way. However, some games have very controlled battling (IE you don't get much opportunity to train) which means the developer knows what level you are at any given time. This is then aimed at the player, who can look at their menu and see how far they've come. I often find in games that the 'golden level' is in the late teens. After this levels begin to become a number.
1-10 rookie. Your character is naive
11-20. Your character is learning, adapting, more prepared
21-30. Your character is more head strong and less passionate about what they do.
31-40. Your character is approaching levels of superhuman abilities.
41-50. The stuff of legends.
51-60. Can conquer anything.
61+ It's just a number.

at around 18 the character is still an underdog, but could probably take on most realistic enemies. Short of fighting gods, a good strategy can win the fight here (depending on the game). So if you want to talk growth, 18 is the underdog. The game shouldn't take the level past this unless some great tragedy occurs which matures the characters. This brings them up to 30. They shouldn't go past 30 unless the enemies they are facing are beyond natural, and they each character has a reason to be this strong. They shouldn't go past 40 unless they are taking on an evil of epic proportions. They shouldn't go past 50 unless they're taking on some god of anti-reality. They shouldn't have to go past 60 at all.

This is just a guideline based on my personal experience. It means nothing. This is just how I perceive characters. I usually train my characters to ridiculous levels before I finish a game. However, I do assign attitudes to characters based on their level, and I imagine other people do this too.

That said, it would be easy to actually influence the game depending on what level you are. Say situations occur in throughout the game where your character automatically changes their decision based on what level they are. Levels too high, or too low, result in varying degrees of negative outcomes. If the level is just about right, then the outcome is generally positive.

I'm not saying this would be good, but interesting, and easy to do.

[elliott20]

There are ways to using metrics to quantify a person's personality.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes1.htm

You could use this a basis for identifying your character's personality and development. This combined with a morality scale should give you a good way to determine a character as something like "chaotic good" or "lawful neutral", etc.

For example, I am INTP at 22% Introverted, 62% Intuitive, 62% Thinking, and 11% Perceiving; and based on knowing my actions my morality is probably neutral. You could easily turn these into stat.

EDIT: You could even use these personality traits to enhance your combat system as well. The more extroverted an individual is, the more enemy aggro they generate. The more introverted, the better their magic proficiency. If they are more impulsive personality wise, they may deal more physical damage, and if they are empathetic healing skills are enhanced. If they have a higher perceiving score, their critical hit rate is increased.... etc. etc.

i love how people are focusing on eithe balanced battles or "non leveling systems" when its all about how does a level accuretly show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person but greate convo every one

I've actually seen this done for tabletop RPGs, albeit with much less numerical measurements.

Basically the way that this worked was that each character had a list of personality traits that they themselves write down. And whenever the player or the DM thinks it is appropriate for it to be a factor in their decision, the character can be "compelled" to act in a certain way in accordance to the trait. Doing so nets the player some action points. (Which players can use to power other stuff in game) It's basically a system of rewarding players for playing in character. (Yes, yes, I know that true roleplayers do not need motivation, but this just makes it easier for even the power gamers to get on board)

Used in games though, again, Sims 3 have had the best example of this type of personality metrics to guide action. Most notably, NPC action or action for when the characters are on auto-pilot. i.e. one of the traits a character can pick up is "altruist", which means whenever the character has disposable income, they will donate large parts of it to charity. It won't do them ANY good, but it makes them feel good about themselves.

The stronger the trait, the more likely they will be spurred to certain action.

What is it capable of?

This.

Seriously, if this doesn't tug at your heart strings even just a little, you have no soul.

[Tsukihime]

i love how people are focusing on eithe balanced battles or "non leveling systems" when its all about how does a level accuretly show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person

Hard to tell when many of your examples in the page before were about beating dark lord at level 100, and not having access to certain maps at level 10.

In any case, the games that you provided would of course not show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person.

Rather than discussing how one could possibly implement it, it seems you're focused on whether people are doing it or not in games that already exist, and whether or not levels by themselves represent any of that at all.

This post has been edited by Tsukihime: Sep 13 2011, 04:55 PM

[nohmaan]

I generally agree with your leveling scale idea, but again it's all relative. This is true for most battle systems based off exponential gain scales.

But there are many ways to develop a battle system. I have a few I've created that are both exponential and linear, and the levels vary in importance depending on which one.

So in a linear system being both level 1 and level 99 have some degree of importance, whereas in exponential gains level 60 might be over powered--- it all depends on the algorithms which is what I've been pushing the whole time. Every battle system is different.

But I will agree, I like for games to be completed around level 45-60, so that you can complete it without investing too much time; but you allow for the ability to invest extra time if the player is interested.

An added note: Levels can increase exponentially in the opposite way, so that you increase in skills faster early on and slower after level 60 (as opposed to the standard rising growth curve)

1-10 rookie. Your character is naive
11-20. Your character is learning, adapting, more prepared
21-30. Your character is more head strong and less passionate about what they do.
31-40. Your character is approaching levels of superhuman abilities.
41-50. The stuff of legends.
51-60. Can conquer anything.
61+ It's just a number.

[Oceans Dream]

Can also do it by individual stats, especially if you have a choice in what to grow. In fact, Fallout 3 did something like this for simple quests. If you have a higher INT, you'll say smarter things, or be better at x skills. So it's not just "Heals more", but you have new dialogue options, skill boosts and stuff. Granted they didn't take it too far.

And yeah, honestly it is good to ask: "RPGs have this, but why is it in my game?". With any system you have, you don't necessarily have to have it just because RPGs do. It's good to put thought on it because not every game would (or should) be the same. But it has to have good thought put into it so it can be executed well. Just being original doesn't cut it if it's a pain for the player rather than benefiting the game, the player, and the world that was created there.

Levels are sort of more like a difficulty meter. "Want a hard time? Play as low as possible. Normal? Grind a little. Easy? Grind to 99." Which then makes it funny when people grind to Level 99 then complain that the game is too easy.

[computerzombies]

levels are needed for the basic grinding system employed by most rpgs, but not always. making only a few enemies in the entire game would actually be a pretty novel experience that might end well. The basic mechanisms would be lost in the plot, until they were unrecognizable. without levels you could have a party of normal people who must avoid guards and such in an attempt to kill an evil dictator (this is random plot generation) and only fight a few times at strategical points to keep action flowing. That being said, it is a novel idea and may not go over well with the rpg market.

[nohmaan]

I admit that levels can be pointless at a certain level, but there are ways around that. For instance, in my game I've implemented level caps that increase as you reach certain parts.

Essentially, I provide enough exp from the quest checkpoint completions to make your character able to skip a majority of the random battles- yes if you want to decrease the difficulty of the bosses you can grind for a bit (and at the level cap, you don't gain any more exp- though you still gain job AP).

This also addresses the issue of "I started with a wood sword, and now after fighting crabs for 10 hours I can destroy planets" by progressing the level caps through relics that unlock god-like levels.

But back to the original point; YES I do play games for the story. And I enjoy a good story very much- but without fun and fluid game play, I won't finish a game. It takes a good balance of both to make a fun experience.

Can you make a good RPG without a battle system? Absolutely. Can you make a good RPG without a deep story but awesome game play? Absolutely yes as well. But having both makes it an experience, not just a game.

[Oceans Dream]

how does a level accuretly show the growth of a character in terms of who they are as a person

Oh yeah. Also, about levels/character development: Why would that affect character development if say you are solely acquiring levels by fighting? Poked a sword in a monster, suddenly I know more about my friends!! If you gained EXP by multiple things you do (Visiting new areas in the game, mixing new things, doing new things in general, talking to team members on down times, doing quests), then it would make more sense to do so. And instead of just showing a number, you could actually take the time to show the character development to the player rather than
"Gained 3 friend points! Use them in the cash shop to buy new clothes for your character!!"

Sort of silly to show a numeric character growth when you can just show the player it by their actions/dialogue in game. Instead of "Woah they started out with 40 rudeness and are only at 19 now! He's a really well developed character... the numbers say so!!!"

This post has been edited by Oceans Dream: Sep 16 2011, 03:55 AM

[Titanhex]

LMAO Exactly Ocean's Dream. You illustrated my point precisely. That's what I was trying to convey.

Levels and Character Development/Story are two things independent and not reliant on one another, and they shouldn't be. It really is silly to infer that they should be.

[nohmaan]

Whether or not the levels are visible to the player, you're still using them as variables for your own algorithms-- isn't that still being level dependent?

Sort of silly to show a numeric character growth when you can just show the player it by their actions/dialogue in game. Instead of "Woah they started out with 40 rudeness and are only at 19 now! He's a really well developed character... the numbers say so!!!"

[Oceans Dream]

No, unless you need to keep track of what events the characters have gone through (especially in an open ended one), then really it's more just the writing rather than having stats in the background to see how rude a character is.

[elliott20]

let's be clear here. Nobody is suggesting we replace writing with statistics and call it a day. That would be TERRIBLE for immersion.

What I am saying, however, is that it is possible to use numerical personality/value metrics to create AI responses towards players in a way that is both modular and still engaging. Obviously, you can replace all of that with just lots of event branching and just write millions of lines of dialogue to cover all of your posts. But let's face it, that approach is not nearly as easy to handle, and really it's not suitable for every game. Some games want to basically railroad you on a certain path. Those games, you don't need a personality metric.

But certain games that want the whole open world sandbox approach, the personality metric approach may be the ONLY viable of approaching handling NPC interaction without basically driving the devs insane.