WATCHMEN

The general consensus of getting somewhere amongst the greater share of gaming, is leveling. At least this is how it is with MMOs. Back in the day, leveling sounded like a pretty badass idea. Let's think about it. There was always that one guy or gal who was at a whole new level (literally) ahead of you and well, they were much stronger. Naturally we felt inclined to get that level or perhaps surpass that person. I know for a fact, I didn't just want their level, I wanted more. Now this is mainly speaking about the past, before games like WoW came about and set a more standardized leveling system.

MMOs back in the past had a tendency to have an absurd level cap. Mainly, the Eastern-Asian MMOs were grindfests. Personally, that's the root of my online gaming history. I tended to get caught up in those quite often. There was a lot less control than what games like WoW did to the MMO face. WoW took leveling and made it more 'fair' for fellow players. They added a reachable level cap and end-game content so that the player could have other things to do rather than just go from 51 to 62.

But wait a moment, if we do hit level cap and do end-game content, are we not just leveling up in a different fashion? Think about it for a second. When you're maxed level you still have more 'leveling' to do. You have gear to get, dailies to complete, arenas to do, points to gain and so on and so forth. So when exactly does the leveling really end?

Better just light the desktop on fire and end it for good. There's seemingly no end in sight. Even the newer MMO models of today's age (which, can't really even be considered that new) are still using these grindfest models of getting gear, leveling and achieving some feat for your 'entertainment'. Now, from the business point of view, if I make a game, then I'm not just making a game for your entertainment. I'm making a game to make money. I need to pay the bills. Bread for the kids have to come somehow. So you know what? I need to do what's necessary.

Why is leveling a good idea for the business man? Well, it automatically makes the player committed to a cause. Whether it be achieving max level, getting certain arena ratings, becoming top PvE progression guild or whatever. Point is, you're committed to my game and therefore that means you're paying that lovely little subscription fee. So as far as the business end is concerned, leveling is awesome! You can complain and moan all you want, but at the end of the day you're still doing it because let's face it - once we achieve that 'level' (Take level in various forms, not just the actual level) then we feel like the world's off our shoulders. We feel like we've accomplished something. And then? Then we want more... and so the cycle begins again in another form.

Whether it be grinding for new gear or clearing new raid bosses - we're at it again. Players in 2003 loved this model to a T. Players in 2013 are growing bored of it. So what do we do here? Do we remove 'leveling' from gaming? Then what? It all becomes all sandbox-like with no true commitment. The player has no goal to attain. Nothing to really chase after. Sure, the freedom's there to do whatever you please, but with no real goal, the player eventually loses interest. Which is why leveling is somewhat of a necessary evil. Now that we're in a transitioning age of gaming, we are realizing that the former model is bland and we're getting bored of it quickly.

We do need something to chase after but we don't want to feel obligated to do so. So how would you go about changing it without breaking it?

Zabuza wrote:

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If we take it a step further, almost everything in life too, I consider to be a leveling process.  To me, leveling = progress.  When we study an entire book in a given subject, our knowledge increases.  When we run 3 miles every day for 2 weeks, our endurance increases.  When we workout in the gym, our strength increases, and so on.  People by and large need goals to shoot for, otherwise our lives would be stagnant and boring.  MMOs are no different in this respect, they were created to be largely goal driven, and the genre attracts those types of players.

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 I love this part.

Dargos wrote:

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Here is my take..

Remove traditional leveling as we know it (ie: everyone has a blank toon) and apply the same principles to individual abilities. The more you use an individual ability, the more experience you gain towards leveling that ability up.

The type of ability, ranged, melee, magic ect. determines what base stats increase as you level that ability. Leveling certain ability trees would open and close other trees, but everyone would be free to chose what route to take. This eliminates advanced classes as we know it as well.

This type of system is geared for very long, and potentially endless character progression. Lets say you want to be a fire mage. In order to unlock the 'fire mage' tree you have to have a certain amount of mana, in order to increase your mana pool you have to level basic magic attacks available to everyone.

So you finally unlocked the fire mage tree? You're a fire mage now! oh wait a minute.. now you have to level your fireball spell to 50 unlock the next ability. As you hit benchmark levels, lets say every 10 levels up to 50, for individual abilities they become more powerful, added damage, bigger aoe radius, cooler animation ect ect.

I could go on for hours really..

but back to my 'blank' toon idea, where the only leveling is done on your abilities and is reflected in your stats as you progress, makes every single bit of content created usable in some way by every person that plays the game. No more tiered planets, instances, raid zones, and no PvP brackets though some sort of matchmaking system would still be needed.

This idea only works if you have the proper stat caps though, lets say everyone starts with 100(for simplicity) in every base stat. The maximum attainable stats for 'capped' toons should be somewhere around double the base. This would make most PvE content doable with large amounts of people, but would mean less loot for everyone. This also means that x# of people per instance/raid would have to go away for it to work as well.

So far as PvP is concerned, hello open world! Four brand new 'bads' would still have a chance to take down one person at the stat cap because there is no level based scaling involved, like how a level 30 cant even hit a level 55 in SWTOR. Good for developers, good for players IMO.

At any rate, what I suggest here is essentially a complete overhaul of what we have come to know as MMOs but you asked!
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 This is a very interesting concept. I do remember a game performing this but it was too hardcore which led to its demise. The name of said game slipped my mind. However, if an MMO can manage to do such a feat without completely casualizing it (aka Making it too easy), then such would be a step in the right direction I think. For one, it makes the player and their character more unique. There's also a splice of versatility behind it.