Level caps

I would appreciate a system that gave you infinite room to grow, but restrained what directions you could grow in based on your previous growth. I remember in Diablo 2, if you pick a level 1 skill and level up till you have access to the higher level skills, you can choose skills that use your level 1 skill as a requisite, but after a certain point, you couldn't choose any new level 1 skills (or 5, etc) so after awhile, your path through the skill tree and what you had access too was set. I dunno if thats the best way, but I'd sure prefer that to a level cap if the devs don't want me to max every skill.

I hate level caps. More specifically, I hate level caps that are easily reachable through normal play. You can't avoid having level caps in any system with character experience - there's always practical limits of how high a number can go on a computer (you can get around this, but you'd have to really hate level caps to bother [wink]).

The kicker is, as you've said, that your character no longer has any growth. Given that in RPGs part of the appeal is the growth of your character, cutting that off removes one of main appealing elements of the gameplay. You've cut off one of the biggest reasons for doing quests.

In the one commercial game I've had any design say in (the unfortunately forgettable Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency, which was a tactical game not an RPG but did have experience for troopers), we had originally had a linear experience curve for the soldiers. This irked me to no end as if you looked after your favourites they'd max out with a fair chunk of the game to go. So I suggested and got implemented an extra few levels where the experience curve went exponential: i.e. the amount of XP to gain one level was the same up to level 40, but this amount would then double for each level up to the true limit at level 50. It was insanely hard to max someone out, so they always had room to grow. You'd get more results if you trained up the rest of the team, but you never felt you "wasted" experience by using your top soldiers either.

Unfortunately though I've played too many RPGs where your character maxes out two-thirds through the game under "normal" play - when I wasn't going out of my way to level up through pointless grind. For example, I always maxed out in Knights of the Old Republic at the top of Level 20, although usually towards the end game. The kicker in the game was that you had to multiclass, one normal class, and one jedi class, and the jedi classes were often more useful. I'd feel bad in replays spending levels on normal classes, knowing that every level I spent now was one less level of jedi later.

Strangely, Fallout 1 and 2 didn't seem to have this problem. It was darn hard to even get enough experience for the top tier abilities before finishing the game. I haven't got Fallout 3, but knowing this makes me less likely to get it.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid I hate level caps. More specifically, I hate level caps that are easily reachable through normal play. You can't avoid having level caps in any system with character experience - there's always practical limits of how high a number can go on a computer (you can get around this, but you'd have to really hate level caps to bother [wink]).

I think the trick is to make your leveling last long enough for players to get bored of your gameplay.

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..the amount of XP to gain one level was the same up to level 40, but this amount would then double for each level up to the true limit at level 50. It was insanely hard to max someone out, so they always had room to grow. You'd get more results if you trained up the rest of the team, but you never felt you "wasted" experience by using your top soldiers either.

That was a great design decision. In many ways, it's also highly realistic. Training is pretty smooth going until you become masterful. At that point, you have to start inventing your own methods for improvement, which takes a lot of testing and experimenting.

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Strangely, Fallout 1 and 2 didn't seem to have this problem. It was darn hard to even get enough experience for the top tier abilities before finishing the game. I haven't got Fallout 3, but knowing this makes me less likely to get it.

Fallout 3 is HUGE. It has far more gameplay content than leveling content. The engine already has experience "end points" for levels above and beyond level 20, and there's a mod to remove the cap. So as long as you're not above using a mod to fix the game design flaws, it's a good game.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Strangely, Fallout 1 and 2 didn't seem to have this problem. It was darn hard to even get enough experience for the top tier abilities before finishing the game. I haven't got Fallout 3, but knowing this makes me less likely to get it.

Yeah, I remember hearing about some interesting perks that I never saw come up as a selection. When I checked a FAQ, I realized that I'd beaten the game and most/all the quests relevant to my charater without being a high enough level to get those perks. I actually had mixed feelings at this point. I could over level and get the perks, but I was already having an easy enough time at the lower level so the perks wouldn't add much to my character.

I have a similar problem with Final Fantasy Tactics. I like playing around with the different jobs, but getting JP and XP go hand in hand, so if I want to try lots of different things with different classes I'll be over leveled.

I had the exact same reaction to Fallout 3 as Kest. I really enjoyed exploring the world, until I hit level 20. I tried to be interested in exploring a few more areas, but I just couldn't do it. It felt like I was wasting my time. So, after I hit 20, I just powered through the main quests and called it finished.

I have to say, I don't have a problem with level caps themselves, just level caps that are too low. If a game is going to have a cap, it should only be reached by players playing the game far longer than originally intended. In the case of Fallout 3, I hadn't even explored more than say 15-25% and I had already maxed out my character. If the level limit was higher, or if the xp curve was steeper, it wouldn't have been so bad.

It's a safe bet that the demographics that frequents this board isn't in the main stream of gamers, so we'll likely have to find unusual ways (mods, etc) to enjoy games to the fullest.

For my part, I don't have a problem with limits on player growth, but the sudden removal of a component of the game is a huge jolt to the player. I don't want to have perfect skills across the board, but suddenly taking away the XP that's been there all along would be like freezing your score in Pac-Man when you hit 67108864 points, and never counting anything else the player does toward it. Sure, you can still clear boards and eat ghosts and fruit and power pellets, but without the points, the wind would go out of your sails.

A game that I simply cannot stop talking about is Kengo II for the Playstation 2. You had four or five stats, of the speed/strength/toughness variety, and each affected different components of your swordsmanship. You started out feeble, and performed various training exercises between swordfights to beef them up. The trick was, there was a maximum net skillpoints you could have, so once you hit the cap, the training regimen you selected wouldn't add points, it would merely redistribute them. So if you chose to meditate to build up your focus for the coming tournament, you'd lose some of your speed, stamina and strength through inactivity. The "end game" was an endless process of rebalancing your character's physical attributes to perfectly complement your style of play. It also had a variety of weapons and customizable strokes and combos that allowed you to further refine your style.

The important thing was that the "Get tougher every day until you can beat the master of the dojo" and the "get tougher still until you can beat the master of an opposing dojo" and the "refine your technique until your school of swordsmanship is shown to be the greatest in the land" phases of the game all have the exact same gameplay mechanics. You're always standing naked under the waterfall, or slashing your way through a bamboo grove, or extinguishing a ring of candles with a single sweeping strike. So you never feel like you've reached the bottom of the barrel until the final adversary falls before you and the Emperor names you grand champion, or whatever happens at the end. I never beat it, even though I rented it twice.

So if Fallout 3 would let you "Level Up" every few bajillion XP, but you'd still be level 20 and you could change one perk and redistribute 30 of your skill points each time, would that be enough to counter the level cap? You'd always be a level 20 character, but you'd be able to grow and change to meet new challenges in new ways.

From what i've seen F3 plays very much like a FPS, a lot like Planetside in fact (which also had a lvl 20 cap). I likely wouldn't care one way or the other because you aren't forced to rely on VATS (and thus your stats) to play. I'd likely fill my time with exploring the various Vaults and other wasteland wonders, or running through Super Mutants with a pistol before shelving it.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage For my part, I don't have a problem with limits on player growth, but the sudden removal of a component of the game is a huge jolt to the player. I don't want to have perfect skills across the board, but suddenly taking away the XP that's been there all along would be like freezing your score in Pac-Man when you hit 67108864 points, and never counting anything else the player does toward it. Sure, you can still clear boards and eat ghosts and fruit and power pellets, but without the points, the wind would go out of your sails.

That reminds me of the PC version of the Aladdin platformer. It wasn't that bad as movie based platformers go, but unfortunately you would always max out the score at 999999 about two-thirds of the way through. And given that a lot of the bonus pickup goodies was just for points in a platformer, there was no incentive to go collect them and risk losing a life. It made the whole score element pointless.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage It's a safe bet that the demographics that frequents this board isn't in the main stream of gamers, so we'll likely have to find unusual ways (mods, etc) to enjoy games to the fullest.

How is that relevant here? You don't have to be a certain type of player to lose interest in a game when a huge part of it simply disappears.

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So if Fallout 3 would let you "Level Up" every few bajillion XP, but you'd still be level 20 and you could change one perk and redistribute 30 of your skill points each time, would that be enough to counter the level cap? You'd always be a level 20 character, but you'd be able to grow and change to meet new challenges in new ways.

I've considered this type of gameplay before. I think I would get tired of training myself to use a skill I've mastered five times before. It's the gameplay equivalent of changing armor and weapons, very slowly, and having to work hard to do it.

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Original post by Gyrthok From what i've seen F3 plays very much like a FPS, a lot like Planetside in fact (which also had a lvl 20 cap). I likely wouldn't care one way or the other because you aren't forced to rely on VATS (and thus your stats) to play. I'd likely fill my time with exploring the various Vaults and other wasteland wonders, or running through Super Mutants with a pistol before shelving it.

As a role playing game, Fallout 3 is pretty nice. As a first person shooter, Fallout 3 has a lot of issues. Yeah, if the controls and characters weren't so stiff and clunky, and the combat was far more realistic (at least compared to other shooters), I wouldn't mind the leveling dumping off so much. Without character development, the game just wasn't fun for me.

A more common solution, and the one that WoW uses, would be to set a level cap but allow the player to start up an endless army of new characters, reliving the levelling experience again and again, with different end results, and then switch among them at will as the situation requires.

I think the primary character limitation with Fallout 3 isn't really the level cap; it's the skill cap. The level cap is a natural consequence of the skill cap. Once you get 100 in a skill there's really no way to improve your ability with that skill without perks that provide some sort of non-skill point bonus to the skill. Of course, by the time you hit 20, you've pretty much exhausted all such perks. So once you hit 20 you're going to be as a good a gunman as you will ever be even if you bumped the level cap to 30 or 40. Or as good a talker, or what not. My first time through the game I thought I had pretty much maxed my character concept around level 15.

Personally, I focused on repair, lockpick, science, and barter. I still had a lot of plans for my character when I ran into the wall. I knew it would take forever to improve the skills that I put off until level 20+, but that was sort of the point. I wanted to save my combat skills for that part of the leveling, to make the long tedious grind more savory. But wham, I was just cut off. Improving the character isn't as much of an issue as being able to try to improve the character.

There are also a ton of mods out there to decrease the amount of experience you earn per everything. Using both together would make the leveling similar to Fallout 2.

OK, I'm going to be completely against the herd here, but I actually like level caps. Now, while I don't necessarily think that you should be able to max out your level through normal play, I think the problem lies not with the level cap itself, but the nature of the game.

I feel that the majority of people here enjoy grinding. Sadly, most RPG's tend to be grindfests. Now, I'm talking about a more generalized version than what you'd find in an MMO such as WoW. Grinding in this sense means going out of your way from the main story (or sub plots). You're 1 enemy away from leveling, or 5 gold away, so you fight a few more enemies to get that 1 level or 5 gold. That's grinding, even though most people enjoy getting that extra ...

The nature of the game should promote the user to stick to the story (or side quests). Or at least explore to find out what you're suppose to do. The game should promote the game over worrying about whether you're level 19 or level 20.

And if you do decide to grind? You hit a level cap. IRL, there are people who spend hours a day at the gym. They're grinding to become stronger, or get more tone, etc. But what happens to them? Sooner or later they hit a physical peak. On the other hand, there are people who go to a pick up game of a sport, and by no means are any of them in top physical shape. Rather, they're just playing to have fun.

When you worry about a level cap, it makes me think of working the game, rather than playing the game.

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Original post by Nytegard I feel that the majority of people here enjoy grinding.

Grinding implies an attempt to acquire something you find pleasing by doing tasks you find displeasing. If the task isn't displeasing, is it still grinding?

Fallout 3 combat can be pretty fun. Running up and smashing down a super mutant brute with a nail board is pretty satisfying. Being blindsided out in the wild by two yao guais and tearing them apart with a deathclaw gauntlet is almost priceless. I enjoy the fighting, as long as it feels like it's getting me something other than a lower health and ammunition count.

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Sadly, most RPG's tend to be grindfests.

If the game manages to implement gameplay that's actually fun to its players, that just means the game constantly rewards players for having fun. That's not sad at all.

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You're 1 enemy away from leveling, or 5 gold away, so you fight a few more enemies to get that 1 level or 5 gold. That's grinding, even though most people enjoy getting that extra ...

First, I despise games that restrict access based on character level. At most, your character level should be an abstract summary of your abilities in the game world, not an ID card that gets you into places or lets you buy things.

Second, if the game is really asking the player to go out and earn something in order to proceed, then the task to earn that something is supposed to be fun for the player. If not, then the game simply fails, especially for that person. This is no different than someone picking up a shooter and not liking to aim ranged weapons. If you don't enjoy the game, then you don't enjoy the game. Grinding is just a term that obscures that obvious issue.

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And if you do decide to grind? You hit a level cap. IRL, there are people who spend hours a day at the gym. They're grinding to become stronger, or get more tone, etc. But what happens to them? Sooner or later they hit a physical peak.

"Deciding to grind" sounds like killing 10 super mutants in a random area, sleeping 6 hours for them to regenerate, then doing it again and again. That's not at all what I did. I just wandered around the wastes, helping those who needed help, and fighting those who needed put in their place, all with the long term goal of bettering myself. I was having a lot of fun when I ran into the cap.

I don't think anyone here is talking about specifically grinding in order to reach the cap. It's more about RPGs where by dint of "normal play" you'll reach the cap before the end of the main story. Note that I deem exploration and solving side-quests to be part of normal play, while constantly facing the same respawning monsters in order to specifically level up is not.

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Original post by Nytegard The nature of the game should promote the user to stick to the story (or side quests). Or at least explore to find out what you're suppose to do. The game should promote the game over worrying about whether you're level 19 or level 20.

The problem is that the game is shutting down one avenue of enjoyment. Originally the fun was about improving your character, the thrill of combat and exploration (in the form of learning more about the world and the story). You're now no longer improving your character, so you're just left with the remainder to carry the game.

And it's not a smooth transition - it's a big cut off from where it was before. It's always a bad thing for games to have a big jolt down in the fun stakes.

Additionally, I think having the level cap makes you work the game more, not less. I know there's a finite number of skill points and perks, so I'll have to plan my character in advance so I don't waste any. In Knights of the Old Republic, I'd start having less fun when I knew my character was almost at the limit. Gaining experience at that point doesn't really matter as you'll hit the limit soon regardless of what you do.

Note though I don't mind having a level cap if it's innately built into milestones you get in the game. Most levelless games effectively have this. In Zelda, you gain the same effect as a level up when you complete a temple - you gain an extra heart of health and a new tool that allows you in interact with the world in a different way.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid The problem is that the game is shutting down one avenue of enjoyment. Originally the fun was about improving your character, the thrill of combat and exploration (in the form of learning more about the world and the story). You're now no longer improving your character, so you're just left with the remainder to carry the game.

This is one area that I contribute to bad gameplay though. The game shouldn't be about improving your character. Improving your character should be a result of playing the game, but not a main focus. Personally, I don't think that RPG's should give exact info to the players skills other than a general description. "You are very strong" is more in tune to playing a game than the number 15.

I can't tell you how many times in Wizardry I rerolled my character to get just the right stats. Or how many times I releveled so I would gain that 1 str while not losing any stats. I believe out of 100+ hours, 30 hours were spent purely on stat management over playing the game. And the first 3 Wizardries had almost infinite levels (alright, level 999 was the max, but you almost never got higher than level 8). On the other hand, one of my fav. RPG series, Ultima, capped your level at 8, which you pretty much reached around 4-5 hours into the game. But for the 100 hours of gametime, I wasn't thinking about how miserable I was because I couldn't gain anymore stats, etc. I was more focused on solving the puzzles and playing the game.

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Original post by Kest If the game manages to implement gameplay that's actually fun to its players, that just means the game constantly rewards players for having fun. That's not sad at all.

But this is where I disagree with you. Yes, if a game manages to implement gameplay that's actually fun, yes, constant rewards are nice, and no it's not sad. But if you're sad that you're not getting rewards for gameplay, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the gameplay in the first place. Gameplay should be enjoyable regardless of reward. If you're upset that you're not being rewarded, you have to ask yourself whether you honestly enjoy the gameplay, or you enjoy getting rewarded.

I agree that RPG's still need a lot of work to be as fun as non leveling games. Actually, I don't entirely, because for me, I felt that in the past 15 years, RPG's have devolved. Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur's Gate have done more to hurt the progression of RPG's than they helped bring the genre back from obscurity.

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Original post by Nytegard The nature of the game should promote the user to stick to the story (or side quests). Or at least explore to find out what you're suppose to do. The game should promote the game over worrying about whether you're level 19 or level 20.

What if I'm not interested in the story? Why should the game "promote the user to stick to the story"? Gameplay isn't always about story - if you want a good story/character-focused game then the genre you are looking for is 'Adventure Game'. CRPGs almost invariably feature strategic character progression as a significant component.

The Ultima series somewhat breaks this trend, but then those games were quite exceptional. On the flipside you have action "RPGs" (as used wrongly for the computer game genre) like Diablo2 which are almost entirely devoted to character progression. In any case, the argument isn't about what kind of balance is best in RPGs, it's simply that the more the game relies on character progression as a component, the bigger the gameplay hit it takes from a level cap (which is why only the most hardcore D2 players ever hit 99).

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Original post by Nytegard This is one area that I contribute to bad gameplay though. The game shouldn't be about improving your character. Improving your character should be a result of playing the game, but not a main focus.

Read what I've quoted from you again while replacing "improving your character" with "unfolding the story". If the game were to suddenly stop expanding the story in the middle of it, would that not be a problem?

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But if you're sad that you're not getting rewards for gameplay, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the gameplay in the first place.

Well, that's true. But that's life. RPG gameplay is usually below par, because designers use incentives like character improvement and unfolding the story to cover the ugliness. Take away those incentives, and the ugliness becomes obvious. Which is what this is all about.

Like I said before, I wouldn't mind the cap as much if Fallout was fun without leveling. But that's like saying I don't mind as much if a bully steals my lunch money when I eat breakfast.

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Gameplay should be enjoyable regardless of reward. If you're upset that you're not being rewarded, you have to ask yourself whether you honestly enjoy the gameplay, or you enjoy getting rewarded.

It's not a binary switch. Without leveling, I enjoy the gameplay enough to goof off with it. But I can only enjoy the gameplay enough to really get into it when I'm working toward something bigger.

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Original post by Kest Read what I've quoted from you again while replacing "improving your character" with "unfolding the story". If the game were to suddenly stop expanding the story in the middle of it, would that not be a problem?

But then what exactly are you after in Fallout?

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Well, that's true. But that's life. RPG gameplay is usually below par, because designers use incentives like character improvement and unfolding the story to cover the ugliness. Take away those incentives, and the ugliness becomes obvious. Which is what this is all about.

Honestly, I've been bored with the genre since about 1996. Every once in awhile, you get a rare gem. I can't deny that RPG gameplay is below par, but I also feel that it's devolved over the years. Whereas other genres have improved their gameplay and added features, RPG's have taken away features. Part of this is because the RPG genre was dieing in the mid 1990's, and unfortunately the game that brought it out from obscurity was a very simple Dungeon Crawler known as Final Fantasy 7.

Yes, I believe FF7 is nothing more than a dungeon crawler using multimedia to cover up what it trully is. If you strip away the movies and story, the game pretty much has the exact same gameplay (although in a third person point of view) as Wizardry, which came out in 1981. Unfortunately whereas the genre went on to evolve since 1981, it died out, and a game with 20+ year old gameplay became popular to the mass public causing clones of that gameplay, rather than the evolved gameplay

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Like I said before, I wouldn't mind the cap as much if Fallout was fun without leveling. But that's like saying I don't mind as much if a bully steals my lunch money when I eat breakfast. ... It's not a binary switch. Without leveling, I enjoy the gameplay enough to goof off with it. But I can only enjoy the gameplay enough to really get into it when I'm working toward something bigger.

I guess this comes under the concept of what exactly is Fallout 3 trying to succeed in? This comes into a game by game basis, which only the developer can really answer. Obviously you can only enjoy the game with rewards, which it doesn't provide, so the game failed you in that regard. I don't like Fallout 3 honestly, but for other reasons.

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Original post by Argus2 What if I'm not interested in the story? Why should the game "promote the user to stick to the story"? Gameplay isn't always about story - if you want a good story/character-focused game then the genre you are looking for is 'Adventure Game'. CRPGs almost invariably feature strategic character progression as a significant component.

Well, I'll admit that I'm an adventure game fan first and foremost, and mainly went to RPG's when the genre pretty much died. It was a logical progression, as they tend to share similarities, although the RPG genre is more action oriented.

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The Ultima series somewhat breaks this trend, but then those games were quite exceptional. On the flipside you have action "RPGs" (as used wrongly for the computer game genre) like Diablo2 which are almost entirely devoted to character progression. In any case, the argument isn't about what kind of balance is best in RPGs, it's simply that the more the game relies on character progression as a component, the bigger the gameplay hit it takes from a level cap (which is why only the most hardcore D2 players ever hit 99).

Well, the genre itself has a much looser definition than the adventure game genre. Games such as Ultima 7, Final Fantasy 7, Diablo 2, and Tactics Ogre can all be considered RPGs, yet none of them are similar to each other in any way. By comparison, adventure games are pretty much all the same.

But the thing is, I do think it does come to a balance issue, because if you are a fan of Diablo, then maybe a level cap doesn't make sense, but for a game like Ultima, it doesn't really matter. And once again, what exactly is Fallout 3 trying to be? I think CRPG is too loose for any game to be labeled that, and unfortunately most games which have attempted to be everything to everyone have more often than not failed miserably. I don't mean by sales figures, but I mean in their goals (ie: Fable).