Leveling Up

[HwitVlf]

In most games I've played, I feel like the whole concept of "leveling up" is mostly an illusion. If the game is not boring, the player will always be fighting enemies who are close to his own power. So "leveling up" is just a way to make the player feel like they are progressing, even though they aren't. For instance, the difficulty in King's Field(US) when you first set foot on the shores of Melenant seems about the same as the difficulty in the last levels of the game. So really, what was the point of all the leveling up? 

I'm thinking maybe a system closer to some of the Zelda games is better. Instead of "leveling up stats" you find equipment that gives you new skills. Or you learn new weapon techniques that make your fighting more effective, but not necessarily more damaging. And, right from the beginning of the game, some enemies are extremely strong others are easy.

Does anyone have thoughts on a good alternative to a "leveling up" system? Or maybe leveling up is the way to go after all?

[Holy_Diver]

And, right from the beginning of the game, some enemies are extremely strong others are easy.

Whether or not that is good versus leveling up, its more realistic, and lends to a more natural feel. Coincidences only serve to challenge believability. Plus if there is leveling up, or not, then unbeatable monsters open up the field to other kinds of game play, avoidance and other kinds of natural problem solving...

The only thing you must be careful about, is the appearance of a monster should communicate its veracity. And a conservative player needs to be able to survive a good whack, because ultimately that's the only way to truly gauge a monsters power. In other words, trial and error should not necessitate Game Over.

Does anyone have thoughts on a good alternative to a "leveling up" system? Or maybe leveling up is the way to go after all?

While I am all for experimentation. I think in the case of SOM the leveling up system is at odds with the Strength Up messages you get from practicing with your weapon, which I think is far more interesting than experience based strength.

I prefer fixed HP, but that isn't very KF like and may not always be workable. So HP either goes up with level ups, or it is a function of Strength. I'd probably lean towards the latter myself.

I've always rebelled against Experience Points. My favorite systems are where everything is piecemeal. So you get points for actually doing something, and ideally the points are specific to what you actually did. So in a perfect world, if you hit a monster (etc.) you get experience fighting that monster. And if you haven't met that monster in a while, you conversely loose experience with that monster. Though you can transfer experience to similar monsters by having previous experience with similar monsters (edited: through receiving bonus experience versus the new monsters)

Ultimately I think experience points are better looked at like a Score in old school games. And Class is a rank based on your score and play style. They are an easy way to compare progress in save games but not much else. In theory if the game did things for the player. Like micro actions that you can't input with a controller, experience could be the determining factor in the effectiveness of that, but ideally that would be a function of more granular experience points as already mentioned.

In the end if experience or Score is based solely on violence, it could be a marker of how violent your play through has been. Especially if you are only awarded points on death of an adversary. Then the Classes could also reflect pacifism. Which is often associated with honor and heroics.

Anyway. What I would like to see catch on is a tristat system. I think games have way too many nebulous stats. I'd like SOM games to stick to Strength, Magic, and Speed. So that repetitive swinging increases Strength. Magic increases Magic. And dashing increases Speed. I think that's all you need (if you are not tuning a machine like you do in Armored Core.)

PS: With Ex another way to increase Speed is tapping buttons more quickly. This can shorten the hold detection timeout period and overall allow you to become a faster actor. If you become too fast for your own good you can increase timeout in the preferences to compensate.

[Madison Lastrega]

I agree with Holy Diver on this, leveling up issue.   I have been keeping up also with topic "som  damage calculator"
Very closely. Cause I have to implement all this data later down the road as a progress with SQS Ultra.   

Very interesting debate indeed. For me I have implemented this formula.....     As you all know my game will be in 4 sub parts.  I strongly agree with John that leveling up and than destroying weaker enemies makes the game seem unrealistic... So in SQS all four parts are progress based , rather than level based... Of course HP levels and strength levels will be in place.... But as john said , in my game there will be items that give powers (just like in the Atari classic)...

So let's try to make this make sense. For chapter one the game is 12 zodiac chambers.  Each chamber will have a fixed amount of enemies, and a few mini missions that give a set amount of exp... Once you battle through the chamber and defeat the mini boss,  two portals will appear. One will take you to the next zodiac chamber, and the other will take you back to central corridor. From there you can reenter chambers you have already been to, to unlock things that need other items from other chambers........ However once an enemy is dead its dead for good.... There will be NO respawning enemies... So as you progress you won't run in to weak enemies. However again it set the skill factor higher.....

And as stated with my plot post.. Chapter one will have a max level to 25.... Chapter two starts at level 25 to 50, chapter 3 , Level 50 to 75 and chapter 4 , level 75 to 99... Giving the game , I hope a balanced feel overall, with items and quest keeping the action paced at a good progression.     What do you think?    I welcome any and all suggestions..      That is how I plan to give a balanced feel to my title(s)...  Thanks for reading...........ML 

[HwitVlf]

I think that sounds just fine. It's a departure from the constant battle in some games, but I like that it would give a definite sense of progress and accomplishment to the player. I think that making the enemies hard would compliment the non-respawning gameplay to make the player involved in progressing through the environment.

If your environment is interesting and picturesque too, it would almost be like the game had alternating modes- combat until a player cleared an area, then exploration and relaxedly enjoying the scenery as you looked around for puzzle solutions etc. The contrast between those two phases could make some great immersion if handled right.  I think your idea could work very well and make a robust gaming experience 

[Madison Lastrega]

Thanks that's the plan :-)   hope I can pull it off           .......ML

[Verdite]

Madds,
"And as stated with my plot post.. Chapter one will have a max level to 25.... Chapter two starts at level 25 to 50, chapter 3 , Level 50 to 75 and chapter 4 , level 75 to 99"

I think its good to set a minumum and maximum, though I think its important to consider players ability levels, and players who rush through chapter 1 may regret not levelling up in that chapter later on, and get laid out in chapter 2 or 3 because they have fell behind the 'players average level' margin you have outlined for that area. So unless you have a way to compensate for this, like only generating strong monsters when a player is level 25+ in chapter 2, players will suffer and likely stop playing if you gauge your game difficulty on levelling up alone. Just my input 

JDO
"If your environment is interesting and picturesque too, it would almost be like the game had alternating modes- combat until a player cleared an area, then exploration and relaxedly enjoying the scenery as you looked around for puzzle solutions etc."

I think this is something that demons souls should have implemented more, when the player sways more towards white then the landscape and enemies should change, wheras it just opens up hidden paths (to more evil enemies? doesnt make sense) and NPC conversations. Rather than having just a set progression method that looks after itself and the player, which is harvesting enemies, farming items... Why not have more cause and effect progression that changes based on the players interaction, and have good / bad outcomes based on their choices in the game. This would likely provide just as equal a challenge to monster infested areas.

Holy,
"In the end if experience or Score is based solely on violence, it could be a marker of how violent your play through has been. Especially if you are only awarded points on death of an adversary. Then the Classes could also reflect pacifism. Which is often associated with honor and heroics."

While I agree that players should regulate how they fight in games, I think that the pacifism should be obtained through events such as not destroying monster eggs, and not defeating weak or non-hostile monsters.

[HwitVlf]

It's funny Ben, what you said about Demon Souls is exactly what I was thinking when I typed that part! No matter what you did in those games, the world pretty much stayed the same. That missed an opportunity to make the game world feel more interactive and alive.