I don't find UO to be a good example. It's not really comparable to TES other than the fact it's an RPG.

They could have added levels to UO, but I doubt whether that would have changed the game much, the same as I doubt removing levels would really change Skyrim.

No level no perks...

Go play Bioshock.

Ah, you're right. Not everything is as clear cut as we like them to be... but isn't it a good point in favor of removing levels? Hmm disregard that it's only bad rhetoric :sadvaultboy:

In any case... I see why keeping levels is a good idea, if only to respect tradition and to allow players to feel comfortable with the stats system right from the start. My main reason for liking the idea of removing levels is mostly that it'd be something different, to be honest. I only came up with my arguments to back it up afterwards ^^

If you get a quest like that you'll have to wait and become stronger, I think it makes exploration of the world more interesting. And if you only have saves deep in a dangerous area you can't handle it's pretty much
your own fault.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had no levels and I think that's one of the best systems in PC roleplaying, now I'm a little biased since I'm a PnP:er at heart but still.
A level is just a number that shows your characters strength, it feels arcady to me and takes away from what RPG:s are trying to achieve.

I'm not really hating on TES having levels though, i'm fine and used to that but I personally would probably have designed the system in a different way.

Right.

Because GURPS, Shadowrun, WoD, and so on aren't RPGs ... :facepalm:

It can refer to the time like Gizmo's example. Radiant story is tailoring quests to recent progress of characters and not directly to their levels for example. I think this is better than this old primitive mechanic(anything about level scaling :flamethrower: ).

They can stay if they will only be a simple label for character progression and/or a trigger for a perk window to further customize characters.(as much as I like natural progress, I think it is meaningful to give the player a chance to decide on their character's further progression.)

Never heard of them, so probably not really RPGs but more of adventure games.

If you never heard of them, it would be better to do research about them before talking about them. They aren't adventure games at all.

WoD(world of darkness) is probably one of the most popular pen & paper RPG settings in the world.

"Shadowrun is a point based game" points-levels. So yeah.

Are we talking about the same type of levels here?

Points are not levels...

We are talking about overall/class levels, not skill levels...

The essence of an RPG is not stats or level ups, but immersion and imagination. Level ups provide an easy way to convey your character's improvement on him/herself, and allows developers to cater the game world to the player- but are not essential to an RPG.

I could easily imagine an RPG without levels. Hell, I can even imagine a mod for Skyrim that would remove levels entirely. However, it would take a lot of thought and troubleshooting, and at the end the game would not necessarily be better for the change, just different. To remove levels, firstly you would need to either individually give each enemy immutable skill levels, or balance the skill levels of enemies based on an aggregate of the players skill levels. 2nd, you would probably award players perks automatically depending on their skill level for the specific skill, or present players a choice when an appropriate skill level has been reached.

I could even imagine an RPG entirely without skill levels of any kind, (and often do.) For an example: the player character could be a robot and instead of leveling up a "Blunt Weapon" skill, it would research and build better technologies. Or imagine Planescape: Torment without any combat or skills. The game wouldn't change all that much, and yet would the game not be an RPG?

Pen-and-paper RPGs have had a variety of systems over the years. "Point-based" games, rather than XP & level based games, work by awarding you points when you succeed in quests/missions/whatever. You then spend those points directly on various improvements. (Like, increasing a skill from 5 to 6 might cost 20 points, while going from 4 to 5 might cost 10.) The same type of systems generally use points at the beginning to build your character in the first place (a typical system would be.... you get 200 points, and all your stats are "average". Raising stats costs points, dropping them gives points, getting your starting skills costs points, you can give yourself "advantages" and "disadvantages" - again, costing and giving points respectively.) Point based systems tend to have "sub-stats" like Health, Mana points, and Fatigue calculated by formulas off your main stats.

They also frequently have opportunities to exploit math or other issues to overpower your character.... which is why the GM needs to keep watch over what the characters are doing (Champions was a huge example of this....)


Of course, for judging the difficulty of pre-printed adventures, they still need some way to measure the power of the group - some systems just do it by the total point value. "This adventure is suitable for a group of four to six 300pt characters". But beyond that.... there's a live GM. They can adjust how things are going in ways that a computer program can't.


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re: the whole "remove levels and base it off your skills" thing. You can do that - but the game will probably have some kind of hidden "level rating" that you can't see, for it to be able to pick things off leveled lists and judge the scaling. So "levels" would still be there, you just wouldn't see them. :shrug:

CRPGs
Gothic, VTMB, Wasteland

If Levels are removed the game isn't an RPG and quite frankly it makes no sense at all to remove levels.

nGCD basically removed levels, but it did have to give an approximate level to get certain things in Oblivion to work, like the Daedric Shrine quests.

The essence of an RPG is stats and/or level ups.
The essence of an adventure game is immersion and whatever you wnat.

That's my opinion, because for me the most important difference between the two is that's the character who's playing the game, not the player (well, sort of....). As someone mentioned above player=/=charachter in an RPG, and the game needs stats and other indicators. They are not needed in a normal adventure game, where player == character.

Levels are an unit of measurement, I don't see why should be discarded.

I take it you didn't just read the previous 6 pages explaining that levelling is not what defines a RPG, rather it is a mechanism that is used in many RPG's. We then went on to explain why it does make sense, you might want to read through those bits too. We are not saying the Skyrim 'should' get rid of levels, just say that it'could' and still be a RPG.

As for perks, I go back to my original point of doing is better than choosing in terms of roleplay. If your charcter is poisoned several times maybe he will earn a perk that will make him more (or even less) resistant to poisons. If your charcter survives several large falls , maybe your charcter will become better at landing. etc. It makes far more sense than a character who spends all his time using hitting things with his axe suddenly becoming better at carrying stuff, or a mage that has been firing off fireballs all day suddenly learning how to swing a dagger better.

And for the record 'roleplay' means to take on a charcter, not rolling dice. Obvious I know, but sometimes people need reminding

Eh. Some of the more "Roleplay-ish" games I've seen haven't had levels (this is in the tabletop/pen-and-paper world, not computer). Like Amber: Diceless Roleplay (as you might notice, it didn't have dice, either. Barely had stats. Had huge amounts of roleplaying, though..... I was terrible at it, since I'm more of a charts/dice/calculations tabletop player - i.e, a bad roleplayer - rather than an improvisational actor, but I can still recognize that it was a strong RPG.)

The game uses levels to control when you can increase your health, magicka, and stamina, and allow you to choose perks, now, it may not neccessarily be the only system you could use to do this, but as I see it, it works just fine for its purpose. I'm fine with changing things that works if the alternative you come up with is better, but for these things, it's usually easier to keep using methods that have already been tried and proven to work than try to come up with something better. Besides, your level can quickly give you a general picture of your level of experience in a way that just skills can't, and can also add to the feeling of progression, seeing "Your destruction skill has increased." just isn't quite as satisfying as seeing the level up screen.

In any case, Bethesda has already abolished two very common RPG concepts that were integral to the character systems of past games (Classes and attributes, namely.) that already gives us something to adjust to, adding levels to that list as well might be too much for those who don't adjust to changes easily.

I'd very much like to see levels removed one day. It's kind of off-putting that so many people are attached to these concepts that have just been placeholders for RPGs of this style all these years.

We have leveling systems, experience, attributes, and skills as placeholders for the real things. There are better ways to implement these things, more real-life ways, that we are slowly becoming more technologically capable of doing. We aren't at a point to get rid of the whole system, but we can certainly start phasing it out.

I, for one, am glad Bethesda is doing so.

This, although the OP doesnt make much sense IMO.

Enemies getting to easy is a just as huge problem, you only stay low level for a limited time while it’s a lot to explore. This might actually be a problem in Skyrim.

If levels are removed i will feel no accomplishment in the game.