What's your favorite leveling system?

[danzibr]

First, let me explain what I mean by leveling system. Here's some different ones.

1) No growth at all. Like Contra or something. Temporary power ups, but your character doesn't get stronger.

2) Not actual leveling up, but still growth. Like Zelda. Or River City Ransom.

3) You gain levels, like numerical levels, and stats, but the gains are random. Like Phantasy Star, or Shining Force, or Final Fantasy.

4) You gain levels, with fixed stats. Hmm... what does this, Tales games? Some Xeno games? Not XenoGears.

4.5) You gain levels, with fixed stats, AND if you want you can alter these. Like being apprenticed to a master to alter stat growth. Like Breath of Fire III and IV. Tales of Symphonia.

5) You gain levels and have 2 or 3 options on which fixed stats you gain. I honestly don't know if I've played a game like this, but apparently Cthulhu Saves the World does this.

6) You gain levels and can assign stats and whatnot how you wish. Plenty of games like this, like Planescape: Torment. Or some Lord of the Rings game I recall.

7) It doesn't really have to do with *leveling* specifically, but character creation. When you can make whatever you want. KotOR, Elder Scrolls.

Out of all these, I despise 3, mostly because it leads to me saving right before I level, then restarting over and over. I also, sort of... don't like 7. Too much freedom has me second guessing myself over and over.

I probably like 4.5 the most. Being able to tailor your characters gives the game good replayability. I'd like to play something like 5 (or perhaps I have...), and I like 6 too.

And you?

[warty goblin]

It rather depends on the sort of game. If it's a shooter, I find leveling to mostly unnecessary. Advancement is already well covered by the careful distribution of larger guns, while more powerful enemies mandate that I actually learn how to play the game better.

If it's one of those real-time-with-pause sorts of deals, I'm in favor of flexible systems. Class based systems are horrible, since they basically require me to know how I want to play the game before I actually have played the game. To my mind, the best system I've encountered for this is The Dark Eye, as used in the Drakensang games. It's flexible, and doesn't divide up advancement in weird ways; improving a skill or an attribute comes out of the same pool of points.

If we're talking non-shooter, but still action oriented, I'm mostly not fussy. Simple is good, and the advancements should feel large and interesting. Getting +10% damage with every swing of the sword is rather boring in a game like this, getting an ability that lets me auto-kill dudes with 10% health feels a lot better.

[Zevox]

Depends on the type of game. For action games, I personally think that no growth, or growth only through learning new moves or getting new pieces of equipment to use, is best. For instance, my biggest complaint about Darksiders 2 when I played it recently was the addition of RPG-esque level and equipment systems, which I feel bogged the game down unnecessarily, and cost it one of the things I liked about its predecessor - finding Lifestone and Wrath Core shards to improve my health and wrath meters, which gave me a good reason to search out every nook and cranny in the first game that was simply absent in the sequel.

For RPGs I honestly prefer straightforward level-ups, with automatically assigned stat gains (either random or set works for me). Selecting the stat gains myself usually seems to be a waste of time in my experience, because there's a clear best way to do it - you pump magic if you're a mage, strength if you're a close-combat character, so on and so forth. Far more interesting than stat gains is being able to pick from various new abilities to learn instead. Those tend to be far more meaningful decisions to make than stats ever are.

[erikun]

I tend to prefer those adventure/exploration games, which typically give you all of your basic abilities from the start and allow you to find more abilities throughout the game. That is, #2 on your list - with the exception that your growth is a reward for challenge and exploration, not for money grinding for powerups.

Other than that, it really does depend on a lot of factors in the game. Shmups are a lot of fun, and a big challenge in some of them is getting those permanent-until-death powerups. I prefer not to be bothered with point-distribution in most RPGs, and so #3, #4, and #7 would be preferred methods to these. One of my favorites was in Wizardry, where you could hand out skill points after leveling up but could also take actions to level up skills. (I believe some TES games do this as well.)

One thing that I distinctly don't like are action games were you are required to level up (through whatever method) to complete. I'm not talking about games where you can unlock different characters or new challenges. I'm talking about games that appear to be pick-up-and-play, but where you are also/completely unable to complete because opponents have too much HP/speed/whatever, and you need to "level up" your stats before you can get through the final areas.

RPGs which contain massive amounts of fiddliness are also just play annoying. Yes, Final Fantasy, I'm looking at you. I don't like needing to manage my AP and Sphere Grids and License Boards and everything else over 12 different characters just to play through the game.

[Starwulf]

I like all but the first one to be honest. I've been a huge fan of any game that involves leveling in general, and RPGs in specific. Honestly it depends on what kind of ruleset the game tends to follow. If it's like Final Fantasy type games, I don't mind where the stats distribute, those are more loot-based games. In games that are more D&D type oriented, definitely have to have the ability to distribute EVERYTHING.

The only games I don't play that involve leveling are shooter type games, and that's just because I honestly can not stand shooter type games.

[Ogremindes]

My favorite is probably the FF5/FFT style job system.

[factotum]

I don't have a favourite, really--my only criterion for a levelling system is that my choices should make a substantive difference to how I play the character, because otherwise, what's the point in having the levelling system in the first place?

[Cheesegear]

what's the point in having the levelling system in the first place?

Skinner Box.

Sometimes you 'level up' by gaining Items that help you progress through the game. Legend of Zelda does this. It is not 'levelling', it is merely playing through the game. This is probably the best version of 'levelling', since it isn't levelling at all.

You start off with more or all of your Character's abilities. Levelling allows you to upgrade these skills, or later acquire skills that would have broken the early game. Prototype or Deus Ex and any class-based game. This requires that you already have knowledge of the game, since not all abilities and classes will be equal, no matter how hard the Devs try.

'Bethesda Levelling', for lack of a better term, is where you get to pick and choose how you grow your Character from the start. If you prefer one playstyle over another, put points into it. Easy. Probably the second-best way of levelling since you're given the illusion of choice.

Levelling through 'Playing the Game' (no levels, game is progressed by Items. Stat growth is fixed. NPC is good at [X], other NPC is good at [Y]).
Levelling through Class/Ability Choice.
Levelling through Choice.

All systems are merely offshoots of these three.

[Vitruviansquid]

In games that test the player's reaction times, finesse, precision, and ability to make quick decisions, like most shooters and action games, I'm generally against leveling up in general. I like to be able to know that I beat more challenging levels in a game because my skills improved through practice, rather than because I got extra stats benefits just for playing longer.

In slower, more strategic games like many RPG's and strategy games, I prefer levelling up to be whatever makes sense... which I know is a cop-out answer, but different level-up schemes will make sense in different games. For instance, Fire Emblem games are fine with random stat gains because there is a high degree of redundancy among units - if you don't like the way one of your myrmidons is growing, you can always just switch him out for your other myrmidon. On the other hand, RPG's where you have a small party of unique characters (like Mass Effect) should probably stick to fixed stat growths so you don't run into a situation where you can't use a character you like because he levelled up poorly. RPG's where the player only controls one character should allow you to pick what stats to grow in order to allow customization and cater to different play styles.

[SouthpawSoldier]

Put me in the "depends on the game" group.

I like the Zelda and early Metroid versions, that gives you gear that enables exploration or new tricks.

Borderlands does well with theirs; flat stats, but the ability trees let you tailor how you wish. I just hate the emphasis on drops. They hype up how there's no two identical items, and how varied the generation system is, but it irritates me because some of the most effective builds DEPEND on certain item drops.It should be Skills>Stats>Gear. If certain skills are useless without uber-rare iterations of a random drop, why take up my tree? At least you can respec as needed.

Elder scrolls irritated me, because it emphasized metagaming so much; manipulating when you leveled, and spamming certain skills for the related stat boost. Levelling and skill development should feel natural; it should have a flow to it.

Mass Effect and K.O.T.O.R. use the same method as Borderlands, thankfully without the item dependency.

[DigoDragon]

Skyrim's system seems to be one of my favorites for leveling. Raising skills by *Doing* is pretty much a natural way of building a character. Final Fantasy Tactics is like that as well. If you want to get better at a class, you pick that class and use those skills.

A bonus aspect I liked of Tactics is the ability to mix your skills between classes.

[Zen Master]

Levelling, to my mind, is a study in futility.

At level 1, you have 100 hitpoints, and can by hit 10 times by a monster doing 10 points of damage.

At level 2, you have 110, and can be hit 10 times by a monster doing 11 points of damage.

Nothing has changed.

For that reason, I like the progress system of, say, Shadowrun. Sort of. In actual fact, most of the progress in Shadowrun has to do with gear. But that's another matter.

I feel progress should be measured in terms of abilities. In other words, I guess I like the idea of a skill tree. Provided of course the skill tree yields something other than simple numerical bonuses. Which will just force things back to my initial example: In order to provide a credible challenge, opponents need to scale up with you.

[factotum]

but it irritates me because some of the most effective builds DEPEND on certain item drops.It should be Skills>Stats>Gear. If certain skills are useless without uber-rare iterations of a random drop, why take up my tree? At least you can respec as needed.


There's no reason why you can't have both in the same game. To go back to an old example, Diablo 2, to my mind, nailed it: certain class/skill combinations would be highly dependent on gear, others would be more stat-dependent, and some relied entirely on skills and didn't need much in the way of stats or gear. You could even end up with a very different playstyle using the same class but picking different skills--the Bone Necro was a very different beast to the Skelliemancer, despite being the same base class.

[danzibr]

Levelling, to my mind, is a study in futility.

At level 1, you have 100 hitpoints, and can by hit 10 times by a monster doing 10 points of damage.

At level 2, you have 110, and can be hit 10 times by a monster doing 11 points of damage.

Nothing has changed.

For that reason, I like the progress system of, say, Shadowrun. Sort of. In actual fact, most of the progress in Shadowrun has to do with gear. But that's another matter.

I feel progress should be measured in terms of abilities. In other words, I guess I like the idea of a skill tree. Provided of course the skill tree yields something other than simple numerical bonuses. Which will just force things back to my initial example: In order to provide a credible challenge, opponents need to scale up with you.
But you do feel bamf when you go back and curbstomp dudes from early on.

[TheEmerged]

I prefer systems by which you start out relatively strong relative to the rest of the world, and then increase somewhat slowly. I also prefer point-based systems rather than class\level systems.

I know some people are fond of them, but personally I dislike "grinding" systems ("Do this repeatedly until it levels up") like Skyrim unless the grinding is within tolerance, or can be done while doing other things I enjoy. Skyrim itself generally fell within said tolerance levels.

I also feel it shouldn't be possible to get everything - like Skyrim's perks. Otherwise I feel like I'm just deciding the order in which to get everything instead of making actual decisions (like Skyrim's skills, where you're probably going to get all of them to 100).

[Winter_Wolf]

When I play games that involve character leveling, I like something that lets me pick and choose how I grow: Skyrim works really really well for allowing me maximum leeway to choose what works best for me and my playstyle. That said, if I gravitate heavily toward doing things a certain way, most of my characters will eventually start to look a lot alike. One would think that I'd be more into skill-based table top RPGs considering how I prefer to level up, but the paperwork it tedious.

One thing I hate is games designed with the assumption/expectation/requirement for grinding until it starts to feel less like a game and more like work. That you're not getting paid for. That you have, in fact, paid for the privilege of doing. Most JRPGs, at least the ones I've played, require grinding at some point. "Can't kill the boss character? Upp, better go grind a few levels then come back and see if it's enough!" :smallannoyed: You literally cannot beat the boss, even with the best equipment possible and a perfect strategy unless you meet the secret minimum level.

Just a nitpick, Phantasy Star (assuming you're talking about SMS/Mega Drive) does not in fact have random benefits to level ups. It's hard-coded into the game that you get X points to Y stat at Z level. The proof is in the hex coding. It might look random because the designers didn't just give a flat "always this many points per level." Maxed out party always has the same HP/MP, and if you strip out the gear, the same base stats.

[Zevox]

One thing I hate is games designed with the assumption/expectation/requirement for grinding until it starts to feel less like a game and more like work. That you're not getting paid for. That you have, in fact, paid for the privilege of doing. Most JRPGs, at least the ones I've played, require grinding at some point. "Can't kill the boss character? Upp, better go grind a few levels then come back and see if it's enough!" :smallannoyed: You literally cannot beat the boss, even with the best equipment possible and a perfect strategy unless you meet the secret minimum level.
I play a lot of JRPGs, but I can't say I've come across any that actually require grinding. Well, with the sole exception of the Disgaea series, but that is the series specifically designed with the intent of enabling infinite grinding, so that's kind of part of the point of that one.

[Knaight]

Levelling, to my mind, is a study in futility.

At level 1, you have 100 hitpoints, and can by hit 10 times by a monster doing 10 points of damage.

At level 2, you have 110, and can be hit 10 times by a monster doing 11 points of damage.

I'd agree with this to some extent, provided that there isn't enough variety in the game. To use an example: SPAZ has leveling, which you then split between what are effectively 15 different skills, with various gear unlocks popping up every second level of each skill or so. If I've got an enemy with a cannon, which fires at a sufficient velocity that I can't strafe out of the way, and I'm using a beam, the obvious option is to just rush the ship from the side while it turns towards me firing the whole way, cross over it, spin, then repeat. If, however, I increase beam length, the cannon takes longer to reach me. Suddenly, I can dodge. Sure, all that the level might have had is a 20% increase in beam length over the normal (and maybe a 7% increase in beam length). That's still enough to open up a whole new tactic, at least against ships firing forward facing cannons with projectiles within a certain range of velocities.

[Forbiddenwar]

Skyrim's system seems to be one of my favorites for leveling. Raising skills by *Doing* is pretty much a natural way of building a character. Final Fantasy Tactics is like that as well. If you want to get better at a class, you pick that class and use those skills.

A bonus aspect I liked of Tactics is the ability to mix your skills between classes.

This is my preferred method of leveling as well, one without levels or classes and your character just naturally gets better in different area sand skills simply by playing a certain way. The old Quest for Glory series handles leveling this way as also does the first Dungeon Siege (I haven't played the second or third yet.)

[Sajiri]

I like systems where you have to use the skill to level, and there are no defined classes. Although I prefer to describe this thinking of Mabinogi over Skyrim, probably because the higher you got in Mabi, the more complicated skills you had to do, and as an added bonus the rebirth feature in that, that let you reset your lvls to 1 but keep your skills was even more fun.

[Zen Master]

But you do feel bamf when you go back and curbstomp dudes from early on.

There is that, of course. Yes. But that's not really a function of the levelling system - or, I suppose it can be, if you want to look at it that way. But the whole 'feeling powerful' thing can be achieved in many ways.

[danzibr]

When I play games that involve character leveling, I like something that lets me pick and choose how I grow: Skyrim works really really well for allowing me maximum leeway to choose what works best for me and my playstyle. That said, if I gravitate heavily toward doing things a certain way, most of my characters will eventually start to look a lot alike. One would think that I'd be more into skill-based table top RPGs considering how I prefer to level up, but the paperwork it tedious.

One thing I hate is games designed with the assumption/expectation/requirement for grinding until it starts to feel less like a game and more like work. That you're not getting paid for. That you have, in fact, paid for the privilege of doing. Most JRPGs, at least the ones I've played, require grinding at some point. "Can't kill the boss character? Upp, better go grind a few levels then come back and see if it's enough!" :smallannoyed: You literally cannot beat the boss, even with the best equipment possible and a perfect strategy unless you meet the secret minimum level.

Just a nitpick, Phantasy Star (assuming you're talking about SMS/Mega Drive) does not in fact have random benefits to level ups. It's hard-coded into the game that you get X points to Y stat at Z level. The proof is in the hex coding. It might look random because the designers didn't just give a flat "always this many points per level." Maxed out party always has the same HP/MP, and if you strip out the gear, the same base stats.
I forget about I-III, but I'm quite certain IV had random stat gains. IIRC, I replayed it on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection or whatever, and reloaded it and compared level ups, and they were different. Again, IIRC.

[Aotrs Commander]

One that involves as much choice and detail as possible. One of the reason I like 3.5 - and Rolemaster before it - was the plethora of options available.

I find planning out my character mechanically is a good chunk of the fun.

[Winter_Wolf]

I play a lot of JRPGs, but I can't say I've come across any that actually require grinding. Well, with the sole exception of the Disgaea series, but that is the series specifically designed with the intent of enabling infinite grinding, so that's kind of part of the point of that one.

Maybe it just seemed that way, then. Also, I haven't touched any JRPGs in years. I think the newest one I've played was Phantasy Star Portable 2, and that's "action-RPG." Grinding in that one is absolutely not necessary, unless you want to get that one drop that would just make your character. And it NEVER drops. :smallannoyed: Stat wise the twin claws I was after really weren't that great and I already had a pair that was superior in just about every way, except visually and the special attribute which was only available on a handful of twin claws. But I digress.

I did seem to need to do a lot of grinding in the 80s-90s era JRPGs.

[warty goblin]

There is that, of course. Yes. But that's not really a function of the levelling system - or, I suppose it can be, if you want to look at it that way. But the whole 'feeling powerful' thing can be achieved in many ways.

And what's even more satisfying is realizing that the enemy who tied you in knots at the beginning is now just a speed-bump, simply because you're that much better now. Winning easily because I have awesome numbers is basically a case of victory by spreadsheet. Simply being better though is something I do, not a bigger number somewhere in RAM.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Levelling, to my mind, is a study in futility.

At level 1, you have 100 hitpoints, and can by hit 10 times by a monster doing 10 points of damage.

At level 2, you have 110, and can be hit 10 times by a monster doing 11 points of damage.

Nothing has changed.

That's only when you've got perfectly matched monsters to your level. Which, if the game is linear, either completely and utterly or with monster gates that you simply can't get past unless you're high enough level, and it's a game where there's not much variance in builds and no player skill (from tactical rock-paper-scissors in Pokemon to tactical rock-paper-scissors + movement in Fire Emblem to real-time combat in Dark Souls) exists, then it's bad. But that would be the most uninspired RPG on the planet.

[GolemsVoice]

And what's even more satisfying is realizing that the enemy who tied you in knots at the beginning is now just a speed-bump, simply because you're that much better now. Winning easily because I have awesome numbers is basically a case of victory by spreadsheet. Simply being better though is something I do, not a bigger number somewhere in RAM.

In an good game, skill progression and level progression should go hand in hand. At the beginning, you've got no experience and relatively minor options leveling-wise. As your experience and familiarity increases, so does the range of available options, and now you know enough of the game to know how you want to use the options available on level-up, and have enough routine with the basics to use more advanced abilities.

[warty goblin]

In an good game, skill progression and level progression should go hand in hand. At the beginning, you've got no experience and relatively minor options leveling-wise. As your experience and familiarity increases, so does the range of available options, and now you know enough of the game to know how you want to use the options available on level-up, and have enough routine with the basics to use more advanced abilities.

There's still I think a difference in overcoming something simply because you have more stuff available, and accomplishing the same task with exactly the same abilities you started the game with.

[MLai]

There's still I think a difference in overcoming something simply because you have more stuff available, and accomplishing the same task with exactly the same abilities you started the game with.
But presenting a novice player with too many options right at the start of the game is actually detrimental.
For example, in hybrid fighting adventure games like Devil May Cry, God of War, Darksiders etc... You start off with limited equipment and combat options, but gain them as you progress through the game and/or level up. It's given to you as you become more familiar with the game and can appreciate and handle the additional options.
Even RTS games like Starcraft do this in campaign mode, starting you off with just building basic grunts, and doling out additonal units/ buildings/ upgrades to you as you progress.

[danzibr]

On the flip side (starting out with many options), it is nice to be able to dominate because you have all that stuff mastered on subsequent playthroughs.

FFX first blitzball match again comes to mind.

[warty goblin]

But presenting a novice player with too many options right at the start of the game is actually detrimental.
For example, in hybrid fighting adventure games like Devil May Cry, God of War, Darksiders etc... You start off with limited equipment and combat options, but gain them as you progress through the game and/or level up. It's given to you as you become more familiar with the game and can appreciate and handle the additional options.

I was thinking mostly of shooters. Take Crysis* for instance. By about seven minutes into the game you're playing with a nearly full set of options; a warchest ample enough that you can beat essentially the entire game with it. There's some expansion that happens in the form of a few new weapons and weapon mods, but the fundamental capabilities are laid down early.

*The first half of which is in my opinion the untrammeled pinnacle of single player FPS design. The second half is a sort of unfortunate extra that inexplicably comes on the same disk.


Even RTS games like Starcraft do this in campaign mode, starting you off with just building basic grunts, and doling out additonal units/ buildings/ upgrades to you as you progress.
This is why I essentially never play RTS campaigns. Why use the most boring part of a toolbox, when I can fire up skirmish and have a real game with everything on the table right now? Getting my ass systematically kicked a couple of times until I figure out what does what is a far more fun, and far faster, way to learn the game than 'spam the new unit' campaign maps.

Company of Heroes II has been putting its boot up my bottom so hard I taste shoe leather since it came out, and I'm still having a blast. When I do win it's very, very sweet, and every loss gives me a bit more understanding of just why I suck so much. The answer, as it turns out, is insufficient utilization of indirect fires to support infantry assaults. And every time I even touch Wargame: Airland Battle my annihilation is shocking in its speed and completeness.

[Mx.Silver]

[Pretentious 'Games As Art' stuff]

Levelling and/or experience point* systems in general tend to work best when they're actually tied-in to the overall themes of the game. Levelling-up is, at it's core, mechanical character growth and therefore works best when the character growth is also part of the narrative. Hence why an awful lot of RPG plots start out with the player character as someone not all that special but by the end of the game they're usually an awful lot more significant to the balance of power, if not the fate of the world. The idea behind it being a simple one: that while you aren't all that much to start with, by the end you will be.
Obviously JRPGs tend to have a bit of an advantage in this respect, since their protagonists can have actual character arcs and the like but WRPGs can have success here by just making the player more significant to the stakes in the world (unless you're Planescape: Torment, which instead ties it into a story about self-discovery).

This is why a lot of 'RPG elements' in action games feel tacked-on: the character is often in a similar place to where they started (e.g. Kratos is going to murder his way through Greek Mythology and then murders his way through Greek Mythology; Dante is going to plunder a work of renaissance literature to try and cash-in on Kratos' success etc.). But it also can prove a bit of a problem in RPGs which also don't really follow a rise/growth type narrative. Take Mass Effect, for example. Shepard begins the game having been a badass and is soon promoted to be the human representative on the super badass squad. That Shep probably can't hit a barn door at close range at the start of ME1 therefore feels weird, as does subsequent power growth given that Shepard is generally treated as being something of a constant factor throughout the games.
Deus Ex also has a bit of a problem with this, which is likely why the subsequent games ditched the experience point based skill system (and also because it removed the risk of players screwing themselves over by putting points in environmental training and swimming).



*note I'm including this because there are games that employ experience point growth without including 'level-ups' in the traditional sense, such as Shadowrun Returns or Bloodlines, whereas nearly all games with levelling include experience points. The only game I know of that includes character levels but no experience system is Silver, although you could potentially extend this to games that adopt the 'permanent power-up' method of character advancement (e.g. most Zelda titles, Beyond Good and Evil), although whether that atually counts as a levelling mechanic is, of course, debatable.

[/pretentious stuff]


In regards to implementation, various methods can have merits - although lately I've been growing rather less tolerant of the 'pick one of these things that will have lots of impact down the line that you have no way of knowing about unless you've already played the game' method, particularly since most WRPG developers/fans seem to be very hostile to the idea of letting a player 'redo' any of these choices. Levelling bonuses being random can just go and die in a fire outside of anything that isn't a roguelike (where gambling on the RNG is sort of the point).

One other area that also needs a lot of consideration is how the experience points are awarded, not least since this will greatly determine how the player is going to approach the game. For instance, if a game gives you experience points primarily for killing enemies then taking non-violent methods is likely to be the suboptimal approach in most circumstances. Varying the combat XP given based on the player character's levels compared the their opponent's (such is the Final Fantasy Tactics games) can also go some way to reducing grinding.


But presenting a novice player with too many options right at the start of the game is actually detrimental.


It's only going to be a detriment if the early levels of the game punish the player from experimenting with those options. In regards to Strategy games there can be an equal detriment from withholding higher-tier units for too long, since the player may not get the opportunity to integrate said units into their strategies effectively.

[Wardog]

One that involves as much choice and detail as possible. One of the reason I like 3.5 - and Rolemaster before it - was the plethora of options available.

I find planning out my character mechanically is a good chunk of the fun.

I think agame can have too much choice and detail though.

When you have several options, the game can be designed so that each option is destinctive and requires different tactics or gives rise to different gameplay.

When you have hundreds of options, most of them tend to end up being pretty similar (Red AOE Blast, ranks 1-10; Blue AOE Blast, ranks 1-10, Green AOE Blast ransk 1-10; Weapon Focus: Dagger; Weapon Focus: Knife; Weapon Focus: Shiv; etc).

Also, themore options there are the harder it is to integrate them into the scenarios. (E.g. in the NWN1 expansion packs, you sometime had dialogue options to e.g. cast Charm or Sleep on someone you were talking to, assuming you had it memorized. The more spells and spell-like abilities a game has, the harder it will be for the designers to allow for uses like that).

[Aotrs Commander]

I think agame can have too much choice and detail though.

When you have several options, the game can be designed so that each option is destinctive and requires different tactics or gives rise to different gameplay.

When you have hundreds of options, most of them tend to end up being pretty similar (Red AOE Blast, ranks 1-10; Blue AOE Blast, ranks 1-10, Green AOE Blast ransk 1-10; Weapon Focus: Dagger; Weapon Focus: Knife; Weapon Focus: Shiv; etc).

Also, themore options there are the harder it is to integrate them into the scenarios. (E.g. in the NWN1 expansion packs, you sometime had dialogue options to e.g. cast Charm or Sleep on someone you were talking to, assuming you had it memorized. The more spells and spell-like abilities a game has, the harder it will be for the designers to allow for uses like that).

Bioware's non-Mass Effect RPGs (up to DA:O, since I haven't played DA2 for more than an hour to judge it) affored you plenty of choice without being too much, given the limitations of a computer game. (Tabletop-wise, there's no excuse for lack of variety!) Torment, come to that, by virtue of it's unique system was pretty good in that regard to (adding feats and skills would have polished it even further, I think). The Witcher games were pretty fair in that regard too.

FFX, I think, was the best FF has managed so far (though I've only played up to XII and skipped XI), as you did have (if you used the advanced option) of taking the characters where you liked.

Diablo III, though was kinda not. (I could see exactly what Blizzard's line of thinking had been getting there, but at the end of the day, people like to be able to make choices. Some choices, perforce, will be less good - all you really need is something in the engine to help the hapless player who's managed to paint themselves into a corner.)

If a game offers me only a couple of choices to make mechanically and those mechanics are the core part of the game play, I'm going to rate it down: if mechanics are that unimportant to the story to make it worth putting some effort into it, it'd be better not to have them and be more like a graphic advanture in my opinion. (With the proviso that I am simply not interested in any games which rely primarily on player reaction skills (e.g. shooters, platformers, shooter/platoformers or even to much micromanagement), so can be excluded from the prior comment by default: they are for other peoplke who like that sort of thing to play!)

[GolemsVoice]

Diablo III, though was kinda not. (I could see exactly what Blizzard's line of thinking had been getting there, but at the end of the day, people like to be able to make choices. Some choices, perforce, will be less good - all you really need is something in the engine to help the hapless player who's managed to paint themselves into a corner.)

I actually liked Diablo III's leveling system plenty, especially when compared to Diablo II. There was always something to look forward to, instead of another point in Scattershot that raised the damage by 12 and reduced the mana costs by 0,5.
The modular system combined with the ability to completely shuffle your skillset made experimenting easy, and there would never be a point where you end up in a corner because you didn't spec for Hell (and windforce!) 30 levels ago, and now the skills that easily carried you through normal barely dented any monsters.

[Acatalepsy]

I thought Bastion's system was good for what it did. Level up via craftsmanship, finding new techniques, and booze!

[GloatingSwine]

Point buy with noticable increments.


I dislike "level by use" because it essentially consists of doing a lot of boring stuff to get at things you actually want to do later. It also leads to early levels of skill being unfun to use because they're so weak (see: Stealth at low levels in Elder Scrolls)


Systems should allow you to direct the development of your character however you want irrespective of how you've played to that point, and any upgrades you take should have a noticable gameplay effect (this is why, for instance, FFX's sphere grid is bad, because the effects of any individual levelup are barely detectable and thus have a very small effect on gameplay).

[Mx.Silver]

Diablo III, though was kinda not. (I could see exactly what Blizzard's line of thinking had been getting there, but at the end of the day, people like to be able to make choices. Some choices, perforce, will be less good - all you really need is something in the engine to help the hapless player who's managed to paint themselves into a corner.)


Which they were very likely going to do the first time they played Diablo unless the got lucky when deciding what ability they wanted to try. Choice in what you want your character to be able to do is fine and dandy when it's informed, but not so much when you're making those choices blind and in an environment where you have very few, if any, options to redo any of those choices. Worst case scenario (which Diablo II could often be) it's gambling on something where you may not know if your bet will win or lose until several hours down the line and you don't even know what the stakes will turn out to be.

[Aotrs Commander]

Which they were very likely going to do the first time they played Diablo unless the got lucky when deciding what ability they wanted to try. Choice in what you want your character to be able to do is fine and dandy when it's informed, but not so much when you're making those choices blind and in an environment where you have very few, if any, options to redo any of those choices. Worst case scenario (which Diablo II could often be) it's gambling on something where you may not know if your bet will win or lose until several hours down the line and you don't even know what the stakes will turn out to be.

D2's wasn't very good either, to be fair and would have stupendously benefitted from a respec option. What Blizzard eventually did was essentially give you a respec at will option and I think the trouble was, that takes some of the fun of the choice out of it for a lot of people. Blizzard followed D3 to the logical end-point only to find that largely, people aren't very logical!

You need to hit the magic point of having (semi-)permenant choices (so making the choices means something) but at the same time, leave some way (not too difficult to accomplish) to dig yourself out of a hole as a backstop.

Mass Effect 2 and 3 was a fair compromise, allowing you to respec on the ship when you liked - first time free, and then you had to pay for it (and ME wasn't laden with infinite money.)



I am greatly of the opinion that all information on character development should be laid out or be accesible from the start, so you can plan with some fairly good idea of what your end target will be. (For that matter, I will very frequently consult the Interwebs for guides and FAQs for additional information whenever I play something.) I actually greatly dislike blind choices, or even playing games too blind: I prefer the story to be a surprise (though that sometims wars with my completionists mindset), but the mechanics not to be.

If you're not the sort of person who wants to spending an hour or two planning your character, you and I are unlikely to be often playing the same sort of game, since I WANT to be spending an hour or two planning my character.

(I have often noted I have spent nearly as much time planning my teams for Pokemon - for the single player game - and reading around the subject than I have often spent playing it, sometimes.)

[Tome]

I personally dislike any levelling system where levelling up just gives you +numbers. The enemies are just going to increase in strength alongside you making it utterly pointless.

That said, levelling up to unlock new skills or meaningfully upgrade existing ones? That I like. By upgrading skills I don't mean 'get +10% damage on my lightning bolt', because that's stupid and boring, I mean 'my lightning bolt now arcs to multiple targets' or 'my lightning bolt now stuns enemies' or even 'I can now call lightning down from above instead of firing it out of my hands'.

There was one game, an action rpg, I recall where putting points into your 'hitting things with swords' skill didn't boost your damage or anything, it changed your combos. So at the start you're flailing around awkwardly like the untrained amateur you are and as you put points into it things get faster and less awkward. No difference in how much damage you do when you hit, but your more advanced sword swings are easier to land and leave you less open to attacks. Just wish I could remember the name of the game, that was a pretty decent way to do things in my opinion.

Every time you level up it should, to me, feel like a noticeable improvement in your abilities, not just a few extra hp and points of damage that you need to keep up with the increasing levels of enemy hp and damage. You can even have these advancements come from items or be gained through finding them in game rather than simply accumulating xp, so long as each one feel meaningful.

[Sylthia]

I suppose I like 4.5 the best.

Of my recent games I loved Tales of Graces leveling system, where the titles you gained granted moves, skills, and stat bonuses.

I also like the Sphere Grid and similar leveling systems, but I know I'm in the minority there.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Class based level systems are for party based games. In single character games they're a terrible idea unless you have the incredible amount of development time needed to make every option viable and interesting (oddly enough VtM:Bloodlines and Deus Ex, the games that best provided options for different class's approaches were actually classless, or semi-classless since Bloodline's race choices are closer to class choices).

Generally I like perk/feat heavy leveling systems and find numerical stat gains dull and pointless, especially when the enemy's defence and hit points rise to counter your increasing attack stat anyway. Stealth skill stats are usually worthless since they tend to just mean you can always hide at high level and almost never can at low level.

Morrowind's level system was especially flawed. "you can only level up your accuracy by hitting stuff but can only level up your dodging by being hit" made defensive skills hard to train without feeling like an idiot and offensive skills almost impossible to improve unless you started good enough with them to hit stuff all the time anyway. If you're going to give XP for doing actions you have to give XP for failing as well as for succeeding and you definitely shouldn't have one skill that only rewards failing and another that rewards success.

[Pendulous]

I think Grandia 2 had the best leveling system for an RPG. You get levels with experience like normal, but killing enemies granted you Special Coins and Magic Coins. You used those to "purchase" and upgrade skills and spells. The spells came from eggs that you found throughout the game that you equipped to a character, and they had all the spells you bought for that egg. There are also books that contain other upgrades, like stat bonuses, or certain elemental spell bonuses, and others. You could equip a number of those skills based on your character level. Then you had each character's specific skills that they just knew. The system allowed for enough optimization, while still making each character feel unique (Lotus Flower, bloom!)

[Qwertystop]

I like the way Zelda games do it. More specifically, though, the Zelda games that also have occasional flat power boosts, like Link's Awakening and Skyward Sword. More tricks is always good, but I still like that little bit of extra oomph for when I have to go back through old areas.

Other times, the natural-growth way Pokemon does it is nicer.

One of my favorite setups, though, would have to be the way Megaman Battle Network 2 and 3 did it, where apart from your massively increasing variety and power of attacks (and required tactics), you get Styles based on how you play. Sure, there's a small set of options, but the fact that it's selected specifically to work with your playstyle, yet still not a manual decision, just clicks with me. The NaviCust in 3 was also good, in that it's noticeable stat boosts that you pick but don't have to min-max to get through the game.

[Partysan]

First off, +1 to what Mr. Silver said about tying advancement to the narrative. That's a point well made I don't have to argue now.

That said there's a simple rule to advancement: "Numbers boring, options interesting." This is a principle that, to me, holds true from a flash TD to a AAA Action-RPG.
That's not to say that numbers can't exist in a good system of advancement - games that set a focus on it will probably use them to add complexity. However the experience of advancement is only made interesting by opening up new avenues of play. Does this fit every game? No, FPSes in particular would often be better if everything would be available from the start, but I personally enjoy RPG elements in most games.

The more interesting question about leveling to me is how one levels, not what one gets from it. I prefer advance-by.use systems to experience point systems, but agree that they have a lot of problems in many cases. Experience points are very abstract and easy to design for, featuring less pitfalls than usage based advancement.
Is skill grinding worse than XP grinding? In some games, certainly. Skyrim for example had horrible skill grinds for crafting skills while combat skill advancement worked well - unlike in Morrowind where it made very little sense. I do think that in the end it's the better system, but it needs to be refined until it can take its place at the top. Also, while I think Skyrim's system of skill values serving as prerequisites for perks is a good way of doing it, many perks weren't all that interesting for themselves.
What also intrigued me was Far Cry 3's skill system. It's debatable whether it worked well in the game but the idea of unlocking abilities by performing specific feats instead of doing a very basic thing over and over appeals to me.

Furthermore, I'm not sure whether advancement should open up totally new avenues of play or rather complement and complete existing playstyles. Maybe that depends on the game in question.

[danzibr]

There was one game, an action rpg, I recall where putting points into your 'hitting things with swords' skill didn't boost your damage or anything, it changed your combos. So at the start you're flailing around awkwardly like the untrained amateur you are and as you put points into it things get faster and less awkward. No difference in how much damage you do when you hit, but your more advanced sword swings are easier to land and leave you less open to attacks. Just wish I could remember the name of the game, that was a pretty decent way to do things in my opinion.
This one sounds really good.

[GolemsVoice]

That sounds like Gothic. It even changed the way your character held his sword, from treating it like a better club to becoming an expert swordsman.

[Choyrt]

I had seen this post a while back, but I didn't respond right away because I wanted to read through it somewhat.

When I GM a table top game with Savage Worlds (my preferred system) I reward XP for successes, but I given a bit more for bold attempts that result in failures. In life, as well as in gaming or any system, experience is the digested product of action.... and failed action yields the most to digest.

I really enjoy the 'Bethesda' leveling system. I'm glad they addressed the exploit of jumping everywhere and hiding in a corner with the 'w' key held down to raise stealth, but it is a good system.

I think my favorite leveling system, if I had to be specific, would come from Arcanum. This is a bizarre choice to most, and I completely understand it, but rarely did I feel that I had more freedom than in this system. I had enormous freedom yet every single skill point was as precious as gold to me. Building the character was extraordinarily deliberate, and there were no 'throw-away' skills. It also fit the setting perfectly. Some skill systems may be either wonderful or terrible given the game and setting they are placed in.


http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee105/silfactor5/Arcanum-026.jpg

[Tylorious]

I'm going to go with two answers for two seperate occasions. There is casual sessions and serious sessions.

For casual sessions, I love the way Cthulu saves the world does it (oh and breath of death 7 does it that way too). It just gives you that slight bit of replayability even if its only 1 time. Very casual and no thought required what soever.

For serious sessions, I actually enjoy the way Final Fantasy X does it, where you can completely customize your character using the sphere grid. This for some reason gives me the gamin experience I desire.

Good things can be said about how Skyrim does it to because you are rewarded for your actions, but this system is extremely easy to abuse and that is a negative point.

Now, I cannot let Zelda go unsaid in this post. Whereas I love Zelda games to death, I love attributes, and skills, and abilities more. I don't like leveling up through items as much as through skills.

I think that's all I got

[Castaras]

My favourite leveling system was Anarchy Online's system. You got levels which gave you health and mana according to your profession and level.

Then you got a few billion skill points to assign as you see fit to over 100 skills. It was a skill based system masquerading as a level based system.

Much prefer skill based.

[Choyrt]

Now, I cannot let Zelda go unsaid in this post. Whereas I love Zelda games to death, I love attributes, and skills, and abilities more. I don't like leveling up through items as much as through skills.

That is a great point. As much as I adore World of Warcraft, it is clearly the gear that is leveling up and not me. It is a collection game, not a character-growth based RPG. At no point am I making character-based choices.

[shadow_archmagi]

I like Fallout's system, for two reasons:

1. Having levels means you advance in noticeable chunks. Big chunks is good.

2. Having XP turn into levels, and then levels into skillpoints means that I can improve one aspect my character by doing something else. From a realism perspective, this makes no sense, from a gameplay perspective, this is great. Maybe I like sneaking up on enemies, but I don't want to spend four hours crouchwalking around as practice (LOOKING AT YOU, SKYRIM). Fallout says I can just get XP doing whatever I think is fun, and spend it on whatever I want.

3. Perks/Feats/Etc give a system for adding unusual or difficult to quantify attributes to your character, which is always fun. They also contribute to the chunkiness of levelups. "My character reloads twice as fast, and can spit acid on wednesdays!"