Curse

Kaiser59 · Apr 12, 2007, 01:48 PM // 13:48

@jkyarr

I've read your answer with pleasure : as i'm quiete "new" to RPGs, I did not consider things as good as you did.

Quote:

I think they should implement an intra-guild title system that can be awarded at the guild's discretion to players that meet the criteria. Wouldn't it be more meaningful coming from your guildmates anyway?

Yes, that would be very nice.

cthulhu reborn · Apr 12, 2007, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Levelling is a result of the fact that gaming is dominantly a male population and even though there are changes in that recently the origins of gaming as we know it are certainly male dominated. So what? you might ask.

Well, generally men are more goal oriented or achievement/status minded. And levels do exactly that.

My wife plays this game but doesn't care whether her characters are level 20 or not. I personally cannot wait to get to each next level. It's built into me.

Of course not all men are like that and not all women are different in this way but I think on the average it's a fair statement.

A guy tends to have a need to reach the next level. Why? Because he can and because it gives him status. To me, it's as simple as that.

And of course in life in general we do similar things, but we call it degrees or dimploma's, careers, titles etc and of course there we see that women certainly can take an interest in such things aswell...a good thing I'd say. But as far as origins go, good or bad, guys made games for guys.

Pandora's box · Apr 12, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkyarr

Please contribute to this thread by briefly stating your ideas about:
1. Capping a max number of levels or leaving levels uncapped
2. How your outlook on #1 impacts or enhances things like overall game balance, the replayability of content, the development of future content, etc.
3. When does leveling turn into grinding?
4. When does gaining character levels become inane?

1. Players want their chr. to improve in such a way that they can beat the environment and, at the same time, find new challanges to keep playing/improving. As long as these requirements are met leveling may continue. I think level 20 is too low. Normal would be a level 50-100 cap. Interesting would be infinite leveling and a discussion about the content of such a game.

2. Games should have content for all levels. Without restricting players too much. 'The environment will punish you' if you choose to play a too high/low level (either by finding nothing of interest or by getting killed instantly). Future devellopement should also include content for all levels, and eventually, new challenges for maxed out levels.

3. When leveling falls behind with the toughness of the environment, it becomes grinding; players start to repeat the same actions to grow stronger and make their chr. become alligned with the environment once more.

4. When you can beat everything in the game!

cyberjanet · Apr 12, 2007, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by FelixCarter

The whole concept behind "leveling" is the idea of growth. Through understanding of gameplay, we grow not only in experience but also in skill, action, and precision. ...
As an example, once a Guild Wars character has reached level 20, they are expected to "know" how to play the game with a sense of intelligence and understanding. ...
Another example is a World of Warcraft character. A level 70 is an "adult" in the world set before them. They understand the game fully and have experience with all that they are given.
In the end, the question of, "is a level capping a good idea?" is no longer the question you should be asking yourself. What one should ask is, "what is my final goal in making such a game?"

This is a nicely put argument. I agree that levelling is part of learning how to play not only the game, but also a character. My sin and my dervish levelled up really fast thanks to help from guild members, but I don't feel I ever really got to grips with either of those professions and I hardly play those characters.

My necro and my ranger, on the other hand, did the slow, grind levelling and learned everything the hard way. These are the characters I feel most comfortable playing (until Good Friday, anyway.)

I think level capping is a good idea, certainly in the GW format. The emphasis is on developing interesting and effective builds. I know this often doesn't happen because a lot of people prefer to just go to the wiki and pull a tested build off it, but the emphasis on builds moves it into the "playing smart" arena, instead of the "zomg I'm l337 n00b" arena. In theory. We've seen the practice.

Looking at the comment about a level 70 character raises a new philosophical topic. I would think at level 70 the character is starting to get a bit old and past it maybe. Business are reluctant to hire 70-year-olds in the workplace. Yes, they're experienced, they know the shortcuts, but they're slower than at 20 and less able to grasp new concepts.

So if you're not going to cap levels, it would make sense to have a built-in attrition after a certain level is reached. The number of deaths you've been through starts to have a negative effect on your performance. At level 70, you have the know-how and experience, but you just don't pack the same punch you had at level 20 no matter how many hours you spend at the gym and no matter how many healthy salads and lean proteins you eat.

Could be an interesting twist.

Mordakai · Apr 12, 2007, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyberjanet

So if you're not going to cap levels, it would make sense to have a built-in attrition after a certain level is reached. The number of deaths you've been through starts to have a negative effect on your performance. At level 70, you have the know-how and experience, but you just don't pack the same punch you had at level 20 no matter how many hours you spend at the gym and no matter how many healthy salads and lean proteins you eat.

Could be an interesting twist.

Ack! Don't think you'll get much support for this. No-one wants to feel forced to stop playing a character, especially when it is a direct result of the amount of time you've spent playing the character!

It may be realistic, but it's not fun... (for reference, how many games do you know even mention your age? Not many. And I expect the amount where age has a direct effect on gameplay is even less...)

And Death penalties suck. Period. There's a reason Guild Wars and WoW are more popular than EQ and CoH. I think Death Penalties are a huge part of that...

ruegon · Apr 12, 2007, 04:24 PM // 16:24

No level cap !

I think if you used the pre-cu SWG system with inprovments like.
A. have stats dinamic for example if u use a 2-handed sword you develop Xp in that skill, But u also develop a gain in strength at a rate of 80% accuracy 50% dextarity 40% ect...ect...while the stats have a degeneration so you have to play to keep those stats high !

B. SWG only worked because of the good crafting ! This is a must

C. Don't make it so ppl have only 2 classes to develop for each char. just have your primary class and let them develop any way they want ! if a fighter wants to develop some healing buy or make an idol ( for example ) and learn how to use it. though it probably wont be that efective because of the slow energy regn. a fighter has. I think you can control the class posibilities by only being able to hold 2 items at once.

VegJed · Apr 12, 2007, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Sorcerian actually took age into account. I remember playing certain characters while just raising the skills on the ones I really wanted to play, since there was this one quest I wanted to do but it required an insane amount of "vitality" to open the doors there (looking back on the game, the terms didn't make much sense, but I was young enough at the time that I didn't know what "vitality" was yet, i was only like 10 when I played it). By the time I was able to do the mission, all of the characters I used were like 70 and feeble-looking (except for the elf, who only looked like he was in his 20s). But did it feel like a bunch of geezers doing the mission? No. It felt like a group of older, experienced adventurers getting together for one final quest, since they were the only ones that could do it.

Sir Skullcrasher · Apr 12, 2007, 05:12 PM // 17:12

I see leveling as a way to bring my characters higher up so that I can compete with other peoples. Also higher levels mean that I can kill more enemies and do it faster than anyone!

Mordakai · Apr 12, 2007, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Sarcasm Sir Skullcrasher?

Your argument sounds more like an argument against no level caps, than an argument for it.

Sisyphean · Apr 12, 2007, 06:30 PM // 18:30

I'll take a shot at seeing a positive aspect of leveling, although I'm a pretty strong opponent of levels in general.

I have a friend who explained her interest in the endless chores of Animal Crossing by comparing it to a Bonsai tree. It's the long term, patient, measured experience of cultivation she plays for, not how much money she has or some obsessive sense of completionism.

I think that aspect of character development - Long term customization and cultivation - is often overshadowed in MMORPGs by the emphasis put on min-maxing and the gear/level treadmill. But if the use of levels as a doorway to bar people from content is removed, I think they could be effectively used as a way to measure your progress in this process of 'cultivation' - rather like keeping track of the age of your Bonsai.

The important point is that an older Bonsai is not inherantly better than I younger one - it is just more 'customized' and likely has more 'character' - it has had more work put into it, and that should be recognized.

My problem is if we had contests or shows of Bonsai where only those over 100 years old were allowed to be seen - this is just arbitrarily limiting our experience, and I don't see it being positive for anyone.

Mordakai · Apr 12, 2007, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Excellent comparison Sisyphean. I like it!

Caith-Avar · Apr 12, 2007, 08:27 PM // 20:27

As this discussion is amazing, I had already prepared some lengthy post... but don't worry, you will be spared. I have problems continuing to write it and it's only half finished, so it may never see these forums. However, I want to make some quick notes on some of the theses that have been made so far: I will name them "Organic Development" and "Meaning of Level". I personally want to add the thesis of "Flexibility" to this discussion.

For starters, I agree with zwei2stein mostly, on the limitations that levels pose. But I see the system accomplished in Guild Wars so far as one of the best available: Instead of being confronted with an all-out complexity from the start, you have time to play around in an area (locality- and level-wise) that forgives errors more readily. Of course you could do similar things with full-fledged characters from the start, but the training area would have to be totally harmless. Being lower-leveled within a lower-level environment that has some stuff restricted (for example monsters not having skills at all, limitations to skills etc.) will feel much more challenging and thus have a much greater learning effect than being full-leveled in a designated training area. At least, that is what I think.
But I'm drifting apart.

The thesis posted most, as far as I can recount, is that of "Organic Development". Not that anyone but me named it that way, but I find this name suitable: I mean to describe with it the notion of developing the abilities of a character by actually using them. I like the idea, seriously. It is realistic, it allows for a great development. But it's not for Guild Wars, imho.
It is, for one, technically prone to the factor of time played. So, technically, a character can out-max each and everything by just being played long enough. This is a) clearly a sort of Time played > Player skill, and b) it defeats the purposes of Role-Playing altogether, which is always either 1) developing your character through experiences to be a specific rolemodel, or 2) fitting your character into a group by taking up a role, e.g. providing specific support that no-one else in the group can give at that point. Now a solution to this problem has already been noted (by all, or almost all of the people that brought this up): Dulling down of skills. Either by time (which would give more impetus to the Time played > Player Skill factor) or by usage of other, "un-aligned" skills (So a swordfighter would have his swordfighting skills dulling down over time while he is practising fire magic, for example). This, however, would defeat the Guild Wars Core Concept of "play with anyone, anywhere" - at least I see it this way. What use is teleporting and being able to play with every single player on any of the worlds, if you cannot freely play what you want, because refitting your character in a new role would take months? I really take GW as having a role-playing-concept along the lines of my aforementioned 2, not like concept 1, which is applied by most traditional MMORPGs.
A third solution would be a straight-out limit of development. So, you play and develop, and you know that there is a ceiling or cap on your development. It is basically up to you, if you develop a swordfighter, a mage, or a fighting mage. But you have only so-and-so many level or ability increases, and if they're used up, you'll be able to refine your skills along those lines, but you won't be able to gain some higher general level (so if you're Swordfighter Level 8, you might be able to learn some neat new Swordfighter Skill over time, but you won't be able to increase to Level 9 along with limitations to what you can learn - or how quick you can learn it (having an intertwined system of level requirements and experience or whatever cost would help here. Say, a skill is available at level 6, for 5000 XP. You can get it at level 5, though, for 10.000 XP, at level 4 for 20.000 XP and so on.) Well, where was I? Ah, sure. The problem of such a limited system is again, that it is very strict and would possibly punish a "wrong" decision too much.

Some players have mentioned that Levels should mean something. "Meaning of Level" is an old concept, maybe the oldest there is. It sets Level as Power, Ability, Skill and Bragging Rights. It's Level 124, playing 24/7/52 beating the crap out of Level 35 who can only play 10 hours every weekend. It's "I have already played 15000 hours, and so I righteously own your ..., you 500-hour-player." It's power. People like gaining power. Getting stronger. Don't look at me. I know the more "ideal" power gain in Guild Wars (improving in your own knowledge of the game and your own performance/skill putting that knowledge to use) very well. But some people prefer the more "material" (in this case taken as opposite to "ideal") gain or reward.
Problem with this system is, that Guild Wars is designed with Casual Players at least kept in mind. They have to do it, and I really like them doing it that way. That means, there is the creed of "Player Skill > Time Played". And that is exactly opposed to the "Level 100 should mean something and a level 100 should be able to own anyone level 90 or lower."
This is clearly shown in Goast's post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goast

Ok that said,what I mean about skills refleckting your lvl is:instead of useing attributes for how strong a skill is,I think the lvl of the charter should determin how storng a attack should be,not where I have a certin number in my profile.If my charter is maxed out I want to do max dammage -armour alignment of course or any saving throws or whatever.

It is a completely different conception of skill and power. What Goast calls "where I have a certain number in my profile" is an additional tactical layer to me. Limits, distribution, allocation. It's tactical, and it is a great element, as it puts more power on the thought/knowledge/skill side over the "time played" side. (No offense meant, Goast, but the wording was just too good to not use this to make my point here.)
Of course, I'm largely exaggerating here. I don't take on anyone specific, I just try to sketch some sort of archetype, which, by its very definition, has to be extreme, as every actual conception would be a compromise between possible underlying archetypes.

Finally, Flexibility. Of course, this is where critics will smite me, as this is my personal view. However, I want to add it here. I see this as a core concept of Guild Wars: You're flexible. You aren't artificially limited (look at teleport for example). This goes well with the 2nd named Role-Playing model: Fitting into a group by taking a specific role. I mean, I have seen the first days of Guild Wars, and it was much more like a traditional MMORPG back then. You could reallocate your attributes everywhere, but you could only take down a certain number of points that filled up again by gaining experience. This system was dropped in favor of the (better, because more flexible) system of being able to freely reallocate attributes while in a designated "peaceful area" (outposts, towns, mission points) while being unable (except for increases) to do so while in a "fighting area". And seriously, I like it. You don't have to be afraid to develop into the "wrong" direction, as you can quickly shift to another priority. Of course, this is done by numbers - after all, it might be the simplest language of the world. But keeping in mind that Guild Wars is designed to appeal to Casual Gamers more than most other MMORPGs, with the concept of Player Skill > Time played, with the flexible design to be virtually everywhere and not having to travel long times before getting somewhere... it's what makes it appealing to me as well. If I know I only got an hour to play, I will instantaneously strike out every game that takes too long to get into or in which I cannot achieve anything within an hour in my mind. Advantage of GW is, yes, while there are high-end areas taking multiple hours (which is good), and missions which take definetly some amount of time (which is good as well), there are things to do like hunting an elite, doing a quest, which can be easily completed within little time, and in GW, how long you take for such a thing is independent on where you logged out, as you can travel to virtually anywhere within a couple of seconds. And if I have a little more time, and a group of friends is forming for some high-end stuff, I can be with them in a jiffy, ask: "What is needed?" and relocate my attributes accordingly. Of course, this is also something dependant. But actually, it is my choice - albeit limited by my ability - in how many different ways I want to be able to play my Warrior, my Ranger, my Elementalist or my Mesmer. I can be a tank or a damage dealer, or an interrupter, a spiker or a nuker, a support character. If I actually have outfitted my character (suitable skills available, suitable equipment), it takes an adjustment of my skill bar and my attribute allocations to fill out one of the other roles, if it is required.

So, to summarize. I am strongly opposed to the point of "Level should be the determining factor of everything". This would be taking away tactical layers and giving too much emphasis on time played. If this is really what you want, you might be better off with a more traditional MMORPG. The moment a lower-level character has no possibility to win over a higher-leveled one (within certain limits - whereas where those limits lie would be another debate), no matter how perfect he applies all of his skills and how few the actual actions of the higher-leveled character are - that is the moment in which a game has lost it's tactical component and comes down to be a game of comparison of time spent within.
I do like the Organic Development thing, but I don't see it coming for GW. It's not designed this way, as far as I can see it. And it doesn't have to be, either. I have seen good games that tried to do this, and I liked those that I played pretty much. To think of a perfected variant of this system is... amazing. But for Guild Wars, for the game I play online with friends, every now and then, and sometimes hours over hours, I think, a system of flexibility is best. And flexibility is easiest realized by numbers.
But after all, I see leveling as something that might be a possibility to scale stuff for beginners, like it was done in Factions and Nightfall. Leveling is something that we do in order to enjoy the game. We do it by just playing, and just playing and enjoying is the greatest good that we try to achieve with everything we do in-game. The moment that makes levels matter too much is making leveling the greatest good, or a greater good than enjoying. Then it is priority. That is a danger. Making something that is done while doing something that we "want to do", suddenly becoming something we "have to do" in order to be able to do what we want to do, that is introducing grind.

Hope I didn't get too far off topic, and hope that my text is understandable. If any questions arise, please, ask. Of course, this post is always taking into account that levels up to some point equal power. If the flattened power curve that has been spoken of is realized as I imagine, it might be really interesting in GW2. Now this post is longer than what I had originally started to prepare. If you are interested in the original planned post, please message me, I'll send it to you.

@Sisyphean nice note on the arbitrary limiting of content there. Although with the younger/older bonsai and "not inherently better, but more customization, more character" this reminded me very much of Guild Wars as it is nowadays. I do have a problem with the long term character development, though, as I see it standing against mechanisms of flexibility that make Guild Wars as it is. But I have usually argued that it actually is development - just abstracted from the factor "time". But that would be very difficult to explain now. At least to me. In english. Written. So take this as a side-note. Just didn't want to leave this uncommented.

jkyarr · Apr 12, 2007, 09:42 PM // 21:42

@Sisyphean - The beauty of the bonsai in your metaphor is hardly the number that represents level. Rather it's the nuance of Attribute point allocation, skill selection, player prowess, etc that make the good players good. Their level doesn't even begin to do their abilities justice.

To me it's pitiful to get hung up on this number as a gauge that supposedly represents "the beauty of the bonsai" when experience proves over and over that it doesn't. There are plenty of level 20 players that are BAD at playing the game.

I must still maintain that there is nothing more to "level" than a beguiling number that moths fly towards just before they're zapped. All of the value of earning levels is actually the increase in other stats, be they HP, Energy, AP, SP,etc. Why not have a game design that brings those characteristics into prominence over a misleading numeric stat?

Sisyphean · Apr 12, 2007, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Jkyarr, I must not have been clear enough. Earlier in the thread I wrote a post about how I think levels shouldn't exist - Suffice it to say I agree with your post above 100%, I was merely trying to see it from the other side.

My point was, the test of your efforts at cultivating your character should be how unique and individualized it is - each level that passes should be another opportunity for you to nudge things closer to your personal vision. Thus, like the age of a tree, level should not be an absolute limiter of quality, but merely an indication of how long someone has had to cultivate that character.

In the current paradigm, each level is nothing but a notch in the prison cell wall, marking off time until you're free to do what you want - be it PvP competitively, raid, or whatever. A new level doesn't mark another stage in your character's unique course of growth, it's just a tiny step on the pre-determined path to baseline 'maturity', a bump in the only road that leads from start to end game - nearly endless repitition of the same few actions.

We may be able to explore off the beaten path on the world map, but taking the road less traveled with your character's stats often leads off a cliff, and only rarely to the kind of adventure and discovery we ostensibly play these games for.

jkyarr · Apr 12, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Thanks for your thoughts Caith-Avar. I wanted to interject that I view GW as a much less "level centric" MMO than any other I've ever played, in the sense that Attribute Point allocation and skill selection are more important factors in determining success (once you're level 20) than is level. At a certain point in GW the content goes from being graduated by level, to graduated by geography. There are good and bad aspects of using such a tool to provide graduation, but I think that's the case with any stat one would use to graduate the content. It seems to me a HEINOUS step backward to hear that GW2 is virtually eliminating the level cap. There is a caveat to my concern however... If they graduate the content independently from usage of the stat that we call "level" and then just include a number for the sake of marketing to the level watchers, I would feel ok with an uncapped game design. It's when I think that they might make decisions where Level is central to the game design that I get a sick feeling in my stomach. They have a much more diversified method for dividing/providing scaled content in GW1 based indirectly on attribute points, skill availability & selection, and geography (sequential map progression). The more factors they can bring in like attribute categories and number of skills, the more diversification/specialization there can be, thereby providing more and more layers/bifurcations/graduations in the content. As you said, such a system is much more flexible (and complicated) than a straightforward increase in stats by reaching the next character level

I would still point out that even a system based on skill or attribute development would have to cap at some point... Take fletching arrows as a ranger skill for example... how many graduations of that skill or XP in that category could one earn before either the resulting affects are so powerful that they cause imbalance in the game play (killing any foe with one shot from your uber-arrow for example) or were limited by practical design ( I spent 3 months earning the 8,565,525 fletching XP I needed for the 100th graduation of that skill and I got 5 more damage per shot out of it!!!

A game design with unlimited levels/attribute points is an exercise in diminishing returns. The player has to pay out more time, effort, in-game cash, etc to receive an ever more disproportionate and diminishing amount of reward. THAT is the moment when players get bored and fed up with a game because it's design got too annoying ( becoming a Jedi in the old school version of SWG is the best example I can think of). So called elitists who buy games only for the hardest-to-achieve titles, possessions etc shouldn't really be left out in the cold...(give them their "in-game biscuits" but not uber-gear). Did they pay Anet more money than I did for the game? So why cater to them with game design when all they really merit is a "biggest loser" title track. It's all just a contest to see who can spend the most time on the game away from the real world, as many other people in this thread have already pointed out. At a certain point, if the game were going to have value to those folks, it should email them vouchers that are good for IRL pre-paid therapy so they can get over their life-threatening addiction.

I like Anet's "Play and let play" approach, but not if it translates into poor design for the sake of broader appeal. They've not let us down before... let's pray they won't with GW2 (posting to forums that they (hopefully) read and imploring them helps too).

jkyarr · Apr 12, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Hmmm--- re-reading it I'm not sure why I thought you meant the opposite... we agree!! w00t!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sisyphean

We may be able to explore off the beaten path on the world map, but taking the road less traveled with your character's stats often leads off a cliff, and only rarely to the kind of adventure and discovery we ostensibly play these games for.

I see your point in the comment above, but I would say that "the cliff" you mention is subjectively placed by the designers based on content development. From a pratical standpoint they can't develop every possible combination of attribute point allocations and skill selections so that there's some content for every contingency, or balance and plot would go out the window with all the player's interest! However there is some mileage to get out of that road before it all falls apart.

Take for example... Prophecies in its early form... That was a very warrior-centric game from a content design perspective. There were many more rewarding nuggets for those who chose warrior as their early characters... Those of us that chose mesmer ended up deleting our character by the time we got ready to leave pre-searing.... That changed over time as more balance between classes and more content with classes was developed. The same would hold true to a point in a system rich in diverse content. I'd describe that diversification as wide or tangent... and depth (as in moving on with the main plot) is more important, but there remains value in diversifying content (to the "AP allocation and skill selection" level of detail) too.

Alex the Great · Apr 12, 2007, 11:35 PM // 23:35

I know i dont level just to level, but to reach that new armour/weapon/build/area

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionjack

Why we level? Answer is simple... yet deep.

It is because we feel powerless in the world, that you feel lack of "things" (by that could mean lots things, like love, friendship, money, family, body, social standing, etc) That is why such mechanics (the leveling) are often found in a Fantasy RPG, an escapist game, since those people tend to want to be someone else. Leveling provide an illusion that they are becoming more and more powerful, gaing more of what they lack in real life. And because it is relative an easy thing to do, usually with long hour of clicking (unlike what you have to do in real-world to gain power), thus those people are easily addict to it. (else you would be out climing a mountain or something, instead of playing a game) The games and their maker, in their attempt to attrach more players, so to sell more copies for their own gain, are willing to give player this sensation of satisfaction, yet only in conditions, like tangling a carrot in front of a donkey. In ways, they are selling the a form of drugs.

Thats why there are leveling, and why people are so willingly follow this imaginary number.

I'm sometimes called a computer addict, and i just climbed a mountian last weekend lol

Mordakai · Apr 13, 2007, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sisyphean

In the current paradigm, each level is nothing but a notch in the prison cell wall, marking off time until you're free to do what you want - be it PvP competitively, raid, or whatever. A new level doesn't mark another stage in your character's unique course of growth, it's just a tiny step on the pre-determined path to baseline 'maturity', a bump in the only road that leads from start to end game - nearly endless repitition of the same few actions.

An excellent point. The current system is not without it's faults.

Perhaps no/high level caps will make this worse, perhaps it will make this better. For example, with no level cap, there is no baseline, and therefore no grind to get to level 20!

That's one way to look at it, anyway.

beanerman_99 · Apr 13, 2007, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Loved reading this thread. Its this type of thread that I enjoy coming to the forums for.

I'll play devils advocate and say that I am totally against the whole leveling of a character as it pertains to what I can do in the game. I don't like games that are set up in a way that I have to be level X before I can a) use an item b) use a spell c) have access to an area. To me, these types of restrictions are more like huge stop signs. Like they are saying "STOP! You are to puny and unworthy to do this!"

One prime example of level restrictions would be the Final Fantasy games. Lord, how many hours have you all spent grinding out XP from fighting the same monsters over and over and over just so you can become stronger and won't get your butts handed to you by the next levels monsters. FF really is set up that the areas are really restricted by what your level is, and, they are usually huge discrepancies between where you are at currently and the next area you need to go. Most times you have to stop the gameplay and story flow and grind out xp. That is annoying as hell and takes away from the whole game experience.

An opposite example would be the Legend of Zelda series. Wow, what a good set up this game has if you really stop and think about it. Firstly, NO LEVELING. Everything that you need to make you stronger is found along the natural procession of the story. You find Heart Containers along the way to give you more life. You find your weapons along the way as well. Usually you gain the weapon in preparation for the next boss you will fight. But that weapon usually allows you to gain access to other items you need as well...like more Heart Containers. I just love the how these games flow. There is very little feeling of "STOP YOUR NOT WORTHY YET".

Back to Guild Wars. Personally I think Anet did a wonderful job figuring a way around the level as access to content mentality. I think gamers have become to used to "leveling" and thinking if its an RPG then you have to level. Anet begins to break that mold but in a subtle way as not to upset what gamers think needs to happen in an RPG. Anet says, "ok, here's your 20 levels and lower end, beginners areas to earn those levels, BUT now that your at level 20, let the REAL game begin".

Well, I just don't think alot of people who play Guild Wars ever bought into that. They still cannot just LET GO of the Leveling mentality. They need to feel like they are constantly gaining something by the hours they are playing. Its sooooo ingrained into us that accomplishment=what level we are that I think that's why Anet is adding the no level cap for GW2. But I hope that they are really saying "ok...we wanted you not to think about levels but that didn't work, you still want them. Now we are going to the other end of the spectrum and saying you can have all the levels you want, BUT it not going to make you any stronger" At least that is my hope.

I think that the things that make you stronger in Guild Wars should be acquired by doing quests and missions instead of "reaching level X" (like the 15 attribute quests). I think this is how Anet will "level cap" us in GW2, meaning that one character will only be able to obtain a set number of attribute points no matter what level they are. Cause if you make characters a little bit stronger each time they level and there is no level cap, well, you would never ever have enough game content to satisfy the higher level people.

In closing I hope that the no-level cap for GW2 will be more of a status or "age" thing than being what we traditionally think of when we think higher levels ie: higher level=stronger mentality.

BUT

Mordakai · Apr 13, 2007, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Perhaps it would have been better if Guild Wars didn't have levels at all.

Having a level cap of 20 says, "We believe in leveling, but only up to a point." Also, for those familiar with MMORPGs it was confusing. Most MMORPGs expand their levels upon new expansions... Guild Wars did not.

It was a good thing (IMO), but perhaps not understood by the majority of RPGers.

Not to mention, leveling was treated very differently in all three Chapters.

Prophecy: Long time to level to 20, about 2/3 done with the game when level 20. As this was the first game, it was accepted.

Factions: Very short level 20 time (6-10 hours?). Lots of high XP quest rewards. As a result, the "tutorial" wasn't as much a tutorial as a "quick level up so we can show you the REAL game."

Nightfall: More medium leveling experience. But, perhaps too long for people who've been playing Guild Wars for 1 year and a half.

The problem, IMO, is that new players need time to learn the basic mechanics and such before being thrown to the wolves in the higher-level areas.

But old players don't need time at all - to them, leveling up their Dervish or Paragon is a chore.

Hopefully, Guild Wars 2 will find some balance where people can just play the game, and not worry about getting to a certain level. How they will do it, I have no idea.