[MUD-Dev2] To Level or Not to Level

[Damion Schubert]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Jeffrey Kesselman <jeffpk at gmail.com> wrote:

> i have a postulate...
>
> People hate leveling.  They hate it in large part because we as game
> developers make it unpleasant to do.
>

It's not a very good postulate, in that's it's not very accurate.  Players
like
levelling a great deal.  It's popular in RPGs and MMOs, and has started to
appear in other genres of games like FPS and action adventure, usually to
the approval of the players and press playing the game.

Now then, I know a lot of *game designers* who hate levels, many with
good reasons, and yes, there are perfectly good alternatives, but no,
the vast majority of the playerbase eats it up levels with a spoon.

> There is a reason its called a "grind" and not a "picnick among the
flowers."

Any advancement scheme in which the goal of the advancement scheme
eclipses the enjoyment of the advancement scheme itself will become seen
as a grind.  This is not limited to levels - I've heard 'grinding' related
to use-
based systems, acquiring gear, increasing reputation, collecting cards,
acquiring resources for crafting.

The trick is that, in most of these cases, it's not a grind the first time
you
play the game.  It's not a grind the first level 80 you get in WoW, but if
your guild needs a priest for raiding, it'll feel like a grind to get the
second
one up.  (But then again, it may not, if there is no time pressure).


> When you ask 'what is the purpose of leveling" its an interesting question.
> I know the purpose in a pen and paper campaign-- it simulates the dramatic
> arc of a hero's journey from a nobody to an all important somebody.
>
> But onlien? i think its basically got the perverse job of holding the
> players back and making them suffer to get to your content and thats about
> it.  It has an economic prupose in slowing down the consumption of that
> content, but if we can moe the game away from game-maker driven content,
> that would also solve the problem.
>

Sure.  What players want is (a) a sense of character growth and progress in
(b) a system simple enough they can understand and make intelligent
decisions and (c) with that character growth coming in relatively
substantial
chunks so they can feel the progress as well as (d) a clear sense of
direction
of where they should go and what challenges are appropriate for them.

And if you describe the players are 'suffering through your content', I'd
recommend starting with perhaps writing better content.

Put more succinctly, games that provide players clear, personal goals are
much more likely to capture those players.  Players HATE being dropped
in a world with no sense of direction or idea on what to do next.  RPG
systems
such as classical levelling provides this in the context of an open,
go-anywhere
environment.

Being able to get relatively insubstantial incremental upgrades, such as
the equipment with tiny, tiny modifiers, has often been suggested but is
usually doomed, as players will quickly abandon that as a goalset.  Conan,
in fact, had gear provide almost no statistical advantage over launch, in
order
to preserve PvP balance.  They've since abandoned that view, I believe,
because, well, it sucked from a player's point of view.


-- damion
"Defender of Levelling Systems"