Making the number go big is an extremely cheap psychological trick that I am tired of seeing MMORPGs abuse.
Like providing food at events is a psychological trick because people have to eat? Or like paying people more money is a psychological trick to get them to work more?
'You shouldn't eat when you're hungry, because hunger is just a feeling' kind of logic.
More damage and higher armor values allow you tackle more difficult content. You have to have that information available and communicated so players understand where their power level is at compared to other entities in the game world.
Leveling is a gate through which skills and passives and systems can be introduced gradually as the player understands their class better. That it uses a number system is a convenience for the player to communicate with each other.
If it's not communicated with a number, it'll be done with colors, or with shapes, or with a little musical number when you hover your cursor over something. It translates to the same exact same information, just in a harder to understand format for no reason.
Honestly, I'm just not sure why every MMO starts with a level cap of 50 or 60. Like...EVERY one does this.
Why not 20? 25? 30? Baldur's Gate had a level cap of around 8 (granted, differing based on class, but let's say about 8), and with the expansion, 10. BG2's was 20ish, 40 with the expansion.
But the point is, you need room to grow, and if you're planning to every have an expansion (everyone does for games running more than 2-3 years), those tend to come with level cap increases. So why start with 50 right out of the gate?
Why not start with 30 or so,, and add 5 with expansions?
Starting with 50 and adding 10 just means in ~6-10 years of expansions, you have to do a stat and level squish - again, pretty much every long running MMO has this problem - making levels even more pointless!
Making the number go big is an extremely cheap psychological trick that I am tired of seeing MMORPGs abuse.
It funnels you into all sorts of senseless chasing - grind level, grind gear to get higher dps, grind, grind, grind.
I can't imagine an innovative system that makes this obsolete however AoC can instead just focus more on the social aspect of the genre. Make low, mid and endgame quests and leveling require you to find find friends in order to complete them but not just because you need to meet the stat requirement in order to do them. That should be only one part. They should also require you to think, problem-solve, brainstorm together, coordinate, etc.
Make social events for players.
Also focus on the RPG aspect of the genre - make lore something which you can discover ingame, not necessarily tied to the main-quests, but parts of it can be hidden, make the storyline memorable, make exploring fun and engaging, not just a theme-park scene watching. Actually make players go and search for hidden things in walls, make them click on plants to learn more about them and once learned give you the ability to combine certain plants in order to trigger ingame events etc. Make it puzzling. Quizzical.
Thats the main problem of MMORPGs. They never went next-gen. WoW vanilla when it released back in early 2000, was overwhelming for everyone in exactly this way. It had so many things that were fresh, never before seen and done. Even gathering quests, mindless mob farming quests, etc. felt like an adventure because it was all novel. Ever since then though MMORPGs just never innovated. WoW expansions only gave us re-skins of all the quests gathering/farm quests and raids. Basically they theme-parked it till the end(up to this day) and feared to innovate because they all wanted to keep to the golden cash-cow formula from early 2000 WoW. Other MMORPGs just gave us re-skins of WoW, keeping to teh formula in an inferior way.
That's the problem. MMORPGs never went next-gen in their MMO and RPG aspects. Up to this day they rely on just two things:
1.Re-skin old content
2.Make number go big(level, damage, etc)
if you don't like cheap psychological tricks, then you should be angry at Mcdonalds and all fast food places using red on their logo, or pretty much anyone selling anything.
meeting stats requirements is important, specially on an RPG where you develop your character and become stronger and you can literally choose how you develop your character.
those things you mentioned arent RPG elements, they are adventure elements. a story based RPG novel is as much RPG as bg3 or the witcher and it doesn't have any hidden doors or treasures or puzzles.
quests in wow weren't groundbreaking.
mmorpg do the RPG aspects well, you are confusing things with other genres. rpg's borrow from other genres too.
people complain about theme parks, but they are popular because people like them and are willing to pay for them...
Honestly, I'm just not sure why every MMO starts with a level cap of 50 or 60. Like...EVERY one does this.
Why not 20? 25? 30? Baldur's Gate had a level cap of around 8 (granted, differing based on class, but let's say about 8), and with the expansion, 10. BG2's was 20ish, 40 with the expansion.
But the point is, you need room to grow, and if you're planning to every have an expansion (everyone does for games running more than 2-3 years), those tend to come with level cap increases. So why start with 50 right out of the gate?
Why not start with 30 or so,, and add 5 with expansions?
Starting with 50 and adding 10 just means in ~6-10 years of expansions, you have to do a stat and level squish - again, pretty much every long running MMO has this problem - making levels even more pointless!
The number itself is immaterial. It's the amount of levelling needed that's the thing. If they chose a smaller level cap, they'd just increase the amount of levelling needed to get each level up, and you'd end up doing just the same to get to the smaller level cap.
50 itself is a nice round number. It gives a feeling of long-term goal, and a sense of achievement when you get there. It's also low enough that future level cap increases don't feel ridiculous, and that new players don't feel too intimidated.
There's a lot of psychology goes into making games. The fact that most companies do it this way suggests that it's been proven to be the most rewarding.
I think my main concern with the post is what the level provides - and how it's going to be displaced if we were to follow this method.
Lets take levels - a level can provide raw stats, maybe skill points - act as a wall to certain progression like content, gear etc.
If we take away the levels as the means, then you still need ways to develop your character - a la stats, skill progression etc.
If you remove the levels how do you fill the gap? If the act of levelling up doesn't give you those stats and skill points to make your character stronger, then what takes its place?
If you're suggesting there might be something like in GW2 for example - say you do a quest in the world and it gives you a skill point - that makes your character stronger. But it's still something which ultimately is moderated by time - if you remove levels you still have to incorporate time into how players progress.
All you've taken away is the visual indicator on how much time (or effort is a better term) - a player has committed to the game and therefore how strong they are.
I think levels also add a certain identity - the same way that in Runescape when you had a player like Zezima with red text (high level) - visually he looked a high level - there are some visual indicators available to help determine how a player has progressed, but with Skins etc it's not a good indicator if it's the only one.
Comments
Like providing food at events is a psychological trick because people have to eat? Or like paying people more money is a psychological trick to get them to work more?
'You shouldn't eat when you're hungry, because hunger is just a feeling' kind of logic.
More damage and higher armor values allow you tackle more difficult content. You have to have that information available and communicated so players understand where their power level is at compared to other entities in the game world.
Leveling is a gate through which skills and passives and systems can be introduced gradually as the player understands their class better. That it uses a number system is a convenience for the player to communicate with each other.
If it's not communicated with a number, it'll be done with colors, or with shapes, or with a little musical number when you hover your cursor over something. It translates to the same exact same information, just in a harder to understand format for no reason.
"Quod mens laeva vetat suadendo animusque sinister / Hoc saltim cupiant implere timore coacti"
Why not 20? 25? 30? Baldur's Gate had a level cap of around 8 (granted, differing based on class, but let's say about 8), and with the expansion, 10. BG2's was 20ish, 40 with the expansion.
But the point is, you need room to grow, and if you're planning to every have an expansion (everyone does for games running more than 2-3 years), those tend to come with level cap increases. So why start with 50 right out of the gate?
Why not start with 30 or so,, and add 5 with expansions?
Starting with 50 and adding 10 just means in ~6-10 years of expansions, you have to do a stat and level squish - again, pretty much every long running MMO has this problem - making levels even more pointless!
if you don't like cheap psychological tricks, then you should be angry at Mcdonalds and all fast food places using red on their logo, or pretty much anyone selling anything.
meeting stats requirements is important, specially on an RPG where you develop your character and become stronger and you can literally choose how you develop your character.
those things you mentioned arent RPG elements, they are adventure elements. a story based RPG novel is as much RPG as bg3 or the witcher and it doesn't have any hidden doors or treasures or puzzles.
quests in wow weren't groundbreaking.
mmorpg do the RPG aspects well, you are confusing things with other genres. rpg's borrow from other genres too.
people complain about theme parks, but they are popular because people like them and are willing to pay for them...
The number itself is immaterial. It's the amount of levelling needed that's the thing. If they chose a smaller level cap, they'd just increase the amount of levelling needed to get each level up, and you'd end up doing just the same to get to the smaller level cap.
50 itself is a nice round number. It gives a feeling of long-term goal, and a sense of achievement when you get there. It's also low enough that future level cap increases don't feel ridiculous, and that new players don't feel too intimidated.
There's a lot of psychology goes into making games. The fact that most companies do it this way suggests that it's been proven to be the most rewarding.
Lets take levels - a level can provide raw stats, maybe skill points - act as a wall to certain progression like content, gear etc.
If we take away the levels as the means, then you still need ways to develop your character - a la stats, skill progression etc.
If you remove the levels how do you fill the gap? If the act of levelling up doesn't give you those stats and skill points to make your character stronger, then what takes its place?
If you're suggesting there might be something like in GW2 for example - say you do a quest in the world and it gives you a skill point - that makes your character stronger. But it's still something which ultimately is moderated by time - if you remove levels you still have to incorporate time into how players progress.
All you've taken away is the visual indicator on how much time (or effort is a better term) - a player has committed to the game and therefore how strong they are.
I think levels also add a certain identity - the same way that in Runescape when you had a player like Zezima with red text (high level) - visually he looked a high level - there are some visual indicators available to help determine how a player has progressed, but with Skins etc it's not a good indicator if it's the only one.