Balanced opposition makes leveling pointless?

Have you ever encountered the idea that, if you level up and get +10 attack but then the monsters you face have +10 defence more than the previous ones you faced, leveling is utterly pointless?

I get the social pecking order of leveling. But in terms of gameplay it blows!

If you had a middle ground, like say a random 10% of the time you encounter an opponent from a lower level rather than a balanced opponent, then your +10 attack actually matters, because for once you ran into an opponent with +0 defence. Then you actually did get stronger, but the rest of the 90% of the time it follows the usual formula of delayed progression.

FFXIV: How to make money (as a company) without (the player) really trying

I should start logging some of my ideas earlier so I can do more 'told you so'. I've said in some places before that leveling time in mmorpg is primarily for the sake of subscription money. It's how the company makes their money. But someone who plays an unhealthy amount gets much farther ahead than someone who plays short, enjoyable bursts.

FFXIV tactics has a spin on this to simply slow down and stop you leveling after a certain time, so your not ahead of a predetermined leveling shedule.

To me its always starkly appeared to be the competing interests of making money and players wanting fun now.

Years ago when I played wow I thought of the idea of being able to wander out of the tavern, slay just a single monster, then waddle back inside and RP or log off, and for that first monster every day you'd get say 100 times the XP, but trickled out slowly to you (online or off). So if you didn't want to grind, you didn't - slaying a single monster would be an achievement. But if you killed more you'd get both.

That's another way, probably more towards player fun now. There are lots of ways to implement it, all with their own nuances.

Anyway, here's the video on it, where they are more honest about the behind the scenes than I would have expected. Though the bit at 4:53 is a bit rediculous 'If you really think about it, it works!'. How a game works is that it's fun. So it's like saying 'if you really think about it, it's fun!'. No, things don't become fun if you think about them real hard! However, thinking can dispell knee jerk assumptions of unpleasantness. However, the human brain is predisposed to work in extremes, either majorly pro or majorly dismissive. It has a hard time sliding the gear shift back to nuetral.

Oh, did I mention a video?...

Guild Wars 2 : Will the levels/game run out 3/4ths in?

Guild wars 2 has a bit of a different leveling format, apparently.

The thing was, I was kind of put off in guild wars 1 by getting to top level before the story ended. Indeed, I stopped playing - not out of rage, just lack of draw.

Before that point you could go out and pretty much do anything, including followng the story, and you got XP, which meant more power, or atleast some edge. It was a reward mechanism.

Then that got taken away entirely UNLESS I went out and hunted specific elite skills and things - ie, I couldn't do what I pretty much wanted and be rewarded.

So I had PVE fights which IIRC, didn't feel like I did much toward the outcome, and no reward for doing them except to see more of the story which...isn't game. I'll read a book if I don't want any game with my story.

So will they run out of levels, or more specifically, the ability to do pretty much what you want and keep getting rewarded? Will I top level about a three quarters and then only specific activities will garner me anything and doing whatever will result in nothing much in game terms?

Levels aren't exactly a great mechanic to begin with - what's the point if you go from +1 to +2 to attack if the monsters go from +1 armour to +2 armour at the same time? Not alot. But even with a shaky reward mechanic, if it runs out, jeez...

Idea for permanent death (in any game)

Killed by a grid bug!

Instead of only choosing your characters first name, you choose their surname, then their first name (or use the random option)

What happens is you have two records of your level - current level, and top level gained. Top level gained only goes up when your current level exceeds the top level.

When you die your back to first level! And the first name is gone - that guy is dead! Your 'character' is known by his surname, because your playing a family heritage, not one guy.

However, by paying money and using certain items (that can only be used X number of times per RL day), you can boost your level back up to your top level gained. The smaller the gap between current level and top level, the less you have to pay. Also paying only lasts for awhile, so although it's alot like most traditional mmorpg, it's not always that way and by default, if you don't have the money and items, your back at level one.

Indeed I think ages ago I heard of some game that used a family system along with perma death, but I can't remember it.

Using psychic design powa's...

Heh, just the other day I was saying this

Any new model has to forfil both the player and the subscription companies needs (or become like guild wars, a one off purchase).

Personally I think something like this “Kill three orcs. In two days of real time after compleating it, you will become level 20. Or after the first three you can grind orcs to get to level 20 faster if you want (it’ll take roughly three hours – weve padded it out to that time)” works out better.

And just today I find out age of conan now gives you a level up for every four days of real life subscription.

I'm gunna have to start formally logging some of my predictions, just to see.