And…. it’s bloody long.
I really think I need to go over it and shorten it down to a more, manageable length.

Still, give it a read. It starts off pretty good, but then it starts to drag a bit. But it’s late, and I’m tired. So deal with it.

Here’s the link.
http://exnfrustration.blogspot.com/2009/08/formal-deconstruction-of-levels.html

If you have any suggestion on how to shorten it, or anything else for that matter, leave a comment.

I’m going to beat up little girls now.
(touhou)

~Yoh

As it seems apparent to me, that you fundamentally don’t understand what I’m on about, and thus go on strawman and slippery slop arguments instead.
(partly because I’m not that good at making myself understood)
(note: I get what your on about, but it’s got little to nothing to do with what I’m objecting to)

But for the record, this isn’t about equalizing progression, nor changing the mechanic in a game in which it was built around. Not that at all.

Two players that progress at different rates, should still be able to player together and compete fairly. Under this specific means of progression, they can’t.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a progression system that can.

Also, progression isn’t synonymous with strength or power, it can be skill or options, or some combination of the lot.
But I’ll tackle that on my blog.

Btw, I like being argumentative, as I’m kind of a prick.
^^

~Yoh

Guild Wars has never really excited me. Perhaps Guild Wars2 will change my mind.

“Ask these questions to any social MMO player, and you will likely find uniform answers.”

Then you’re essentially, in a roundabout way, kinda agreeing with me. The problem is how this subset of players feel or can deal about the mechanic, not with the mechanic itself.

Hell, even if you wanna go by Bartle’s archetypes, that’s my 75%: Achievers, Killers and Explorers tend to not have many problems with levels.

Of course it can always be made to work better and make it more tolerable for Socializers but, hypothetically, if we ever get to a point where we have to say “Do we scrape the whole thing for the benefit of the 25%, or do we leave it as it is for the benefit of the 75%”, you know which one I’d pick. But (thankfully) it doesn’t work that way.

“It doesn’t matter how long they play the game, or when they started, if they want to play with their friends, then they should F**n be able to.
No if’s, no but’s about it.”

I disagree. There are a lot of if’s and but’s about it. If there’s a group of four friends in a progression game and one of them takes a break for a couple of months, then comes back and complains he can’t play with his friends anymore because they have advanced, why should we go out of our way to cater to that guy?

I’m more than open to suggestions, in fact I think CoX’s sidekicking is a great system, but if there’s no system like that… I’m sorry. Why tend to the needs of people who, for any reason, did -not- play the game? We should be tending to players, not non-players. I can sympathize with that guy a lot, and I usually do because RL gets in the middle for everyone, but that lack of time to play is the player’s problem, not the game’s problem and certainly not other players’ problem.

If those other three friends accrued two months of progress (however you wanna measure it, I’m not even talking about levels) and then the fourth guy comes back and we make it so that he can “play with his friends” at the same level of measuring then we just destroyed the value of that progress for the three guys that did play the game. We’re suggesting that playing or not playing the game means essentially the same when a character that has not played for two months is essentially indistinguishable from those who have progressed further. This is of course under normal progression, not at the end of the progression where content stops (until the next content injection or forever) where characters inevitably glut.

If you still can’t see the problem, see it as your standard reputation track. A guy worked on that track gaining reputation for two months, another guy didn’t. Now, depending on the game, this “I wanna play with my friends, mechanics and progression be damned” deal comes very close to equalizing those two players on the track. Why? It’s not the first player’s fault, so why should his effort be trivialized?

I just don’t see “play with my friends” as this huge prime imperative that apparently has to override everything in the game. To me it’s not the zeroth law of anything. Of course I’m a solo player, and I fully admit my bias. I don’t mind people playing with their friends. However they get their fun is fine. But I do object about the cost of this and how many working things we’re gonna end up breaking just to let people play with their friends.

“I’d like to know just where out of your ass did you put that “75%+ of players have absolutely no problem with it””

From my own experience of talking to friends and players. I certainly didn’t run a survey. I’m sorry but when I talk to people of all possible playstyles in different games, and they mention their grievances, “levels” is not really a huge concern. Ever.

—

It’s a nice discussion, don’t apologize for being argumentative. I like a good discussion :)

Agreed, this is getting OT. I’ll argue over at your place whenever you have your stuff up.

First, the questions were rhetorical. I wasn’t looking for an answer.
They may not apply to you, because the problem is very specific in nature.

It applies only to social dynamics. If your not social, then it won’t apply to you. (hench, this is the broken part)
And when I stated it was self evident, I didn’t mean obvious.
I mean there is reasonable evidence to show that there is a problem, and that evidence is easy to find.

Ask these questions to any social MMO player, and you will likely find uniform answers.

During you ‘rebuttal’, you consistently went on the notion of time. Saying that somebody with less time to spend should just ’suck it up’ when it comes to playing with their friends, is pure BS.

It doesn’t matter how long they play the game, or when they started, if they want to play with their friends, then they should F**n be able to.
No if’s, no but’s about it.

I’d like to know just where out of your ass did you put that “75%+ of players have absolutely no problem with it”.
Sure people use it, as it does do in essence what is is supposed too, progression.
Hell, I’ll be the first to say it works as far a progression goes. Quite well in fact. And in that sense, it isn’t broken.

But toleration should not be confused with with content.
Just because people don’t fly of the handles, or all stop playing, doesn’t mean that there isn’t any problem.

And it is possible that they put up with it because they don’t know any better. A kind of ‘grass is greener’ sort of thing.

You kind of lost me with the “differentiate and distance players” thing, as it makes no sense. What are you talking about?

Yeah, players are different. But what separates them shouldn’t be artificial differences, such as time, money, or items.
But rather who they are, and how they play the game.
That’s it.

If one player beats another, regardless who feels “superior” or not, the determing factor should be nothing other than skill. While other things such as time, items and knowledge should factor into it.

This way it’s a level playing field, right from the get go.
It’s a contest of wits then, not time, not money.
It’s hardly punishing players for succeeding. If anything, winning via skill alone makes the victory all the more rewarding.

And on your last point, bad ideas get propagated too.
Look at religion. It is so obviously full of crap, and yet it continues.

The industry is fairly good at propagating good ideas, but this isn’t to say that they aren’t also good at copying some stuff also.
Because when you copy something, you not only copy the good ideas, you copy the bad ones too.
(It is also possible that they just don’t see the problem. Look up ‘rose-colored glasses dilemma’ on my blog)

Levels aren’t “horribly” broken, or “evil”, nor do I pretend they are. But there is a problem, and that’s worth addressing.

If anybody could come up with a level system that didn’t have these very specific problems, then I would have no problem with it anymore.
But until that happens, I say “let try something different, lets at least ‘try’”.

(of course, all of this has little or nothing to do with my problem with grind, which is also associated with levels, but that’s another kettle of fish)

Note: This thread seems to be spiraling out of control.
(partly because I’m so argumentative)
So I think I’ll have to put forth a formal deconstruction on the matter on my blog, as to better analyze the source of the problem.
As it seems apparent that not everyone can see the problem as clearly as I do.
(regardless how we go about solving the problem)

Maybe tomorrow.

~Yoh

“How many times have you not been able to play with somebody, simply because of levels?”

Myself, personally, very rarely. I’m an efficient player and I tend to progress faster than average, if time permits. In addition to this, as far as “playing the game” (aka, going out, questing, etc) I’m a solo player so it doesn’t affect me. My socialization usually comes through roleplay, which bypasses levels entirely.

“How many times have you gotten your arse kicked simply because of levels?”

I don’t keep an accurate tally. I’m not a great PvP player on MMOs (but good at FPSs, that’s the flip). Whenever I get my ass kicked it’s because of evident lack of mad PvP skillz rather than the levels involved.

“How many missed opportunities and friends lost does it take for it to become a ‘restrictive’ mechanic?”

If someone de-friends me because we can’t do stuff together in-game, I’m probably better off not being friends with that kind of fickle person. I’m not being facetious, I mean this.

“It is clearly self evident that levels cause problems, unnecessarily so. Don’t you think it could be done better?”

Of course I do. I think -everything- could be done better -by default-. But I disagree with the rest. I think the only truly self-evident thing is that some people and some types of players clearly have problems with the idea of levels but (to me) this is because of their own issues (lack of free time maybe. “must-group-or-nothing-makes-sense” playstyle, very slow levelers in general, etc…. all valid issues, incidentally). It’s clear the game doesn’t fit them, or they don’t fit the game.

What I suggest is that since it’s also quite clear that most players, by far, don’t have this problem with levels, only a subset of players do, is it really a problem with the mechanic itself? Or with the players being unable (or, hell, unwilling) to try and adapt to it better?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that games should be for everybody, and the more people that plays games, the better. But I also know you can’t take this too far because by trying to please everyone you’ll end up pleasing no one. So yeah make it better by all means. I’m all for that. But what’s the point of retooling or eliminating a proven mechanic which 75%+ of players have absolutely no problem with? Just to be different? For variety’s sake? Yeah, variety’s sake has some value, but not that much.

“My point is, why keep ANY mechanic that causes such evident problems if it can be avoided?”

Because the problems might not be evident, or because for a large portion of players, they’re not even problems at all. What some people rightfully see as aggravation, some others rightfully see it as challenge; to me the best option would be to try and strike a balance between the two, and this is something that historically has been done. The common solution seems to be to compromise for both sides, as in “Don’t get rid of levels, but make leveling take less time and be less painful”(*).

A happy medium.

This is a bit of a pointless argument (levels are evil because they separate people) because even if we got rid of levels there will always be something that will differentiate players and characters from each other. There will always be a metric, an element or a mechanic to differentiate and distance players, because without that distance you can’t have progression and if you rip progression the game dies.

Fine, take levels out, but then it will turn into money being the differentiator, or skills, or items or crafting progression, or player skill or time spent or whatever you want. One of the big meta elements of these types of games is that players do very much like progressing, being different from other players and feeling superior to other players. Leveling is the symptom of this, not the cause.

I feel for the people who are left behind by friends as they level because of lack of free time, other obligations or what have you. I really do, because it sucks when RL intersects like that, but the solution is not to blame the game or demand sweeping changes just so these people can keep up, particularly when sweeping changes aren’t needed. At that point you can either suck it up and accept you’ll be inevitably left behind and you no longer have 14 hours a day to play like you used to (something we’ve all done), or find some more free time to dedicate to it.

I’m not a philosophical objectivist, but I don’t believe we should be punishing players for -succeeding- at progressing at a quicker pace on behalf of those who can’t.

I’ve gone off the deep end again! ;)

“I’d rather someone try a different mechanic and fail, then go with a mechanic that everybody knows is broken.”

Hardly the case and hardly broken. If the whole concept of levels was -truly and utterly- broken like you suggest, I’m not gonna say you’d see all level-less games being successful instead of leveled ones, but you would definitely see more of them up there. I’m not taking just about sales. If levels were truly and horribly broken as a mechanic, those games would be niche by now. If level-less was the way to go we would have seen at least -one- major level-less hit (and yes, one could make a case for EVE and GW falling in this category, and it’s worth examining).

This industry does a lot of things wrong, but one of the things it does right is that it tends to be nicely efficient about getting rid of truly broken or outdated stuff just by iteration alone. That alone, the fact that we’re still churning out games with levels, says to me they’re not broken.

The concept of levels needs to be rethought and fine tuned? Of course. Always.
Can they be made better? No doubt. Always.
Can other things be tried at the same time? Yes, by all means.
Are they a broken mechanic? No, not by a long shot.

(*) Applies only on this side of the Pacific.

How many times have you gotten your arse kicked simply because of levels?

How many missed opportunities and friends lost does it take for it to become a ‘restrictive’ mechanic?

It is clearly self evident that levels cause problems, unnecessarily so. Don’t you think it could be done better?

And yes, I realize some games have level-less systems, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. Not only do you need a progression system that actually works, but it has to be implemented correctly too.
Thus far, nothing has quite measured up.

While everything is to some degree restrictive, and everything could be better, levels, and too a lesser extent classes, stick out like a sore thumb.

(note: I’m only talking about levels and classes in multiplayer games, as the goal is social by in large, in which they a ultimately unsuited for.)

My point is, why keep ANY mechanic that causes such evident problems if it can be avoided?

I’d rather someone try a different mechanic and fail, then go with a mechanic that everybody knows is broken. At least then we have the possibility to learn something.

~Yoh