I'm curious what everyone would think of this approach.

Basically levels are tiered, when you approach the end of your tier you can either do the "end game" content for that tier, or decide to move on.  Each "grade" provides a different level of difficulty, and I can see no better way of catering to a broad spectrum of players.

Grade D - Level 1 to 40 = WoWish noob levels anyone in a coma can do. Beginner end-game raid content. Designed for extra casual players or people with little playtime available.
Grade C - Level 41 to 60 = Starting to get harder, soloing takes a little skill. Varying levels of raid content. Desgined for the standard soloer / raider.
Grade B - Level 61 to 80 = Still harder. You need a team effort. Soloing takes skill and guile. Wider spectrum of raid content, with more advanced encounters. Designed to accomodate groupers, skilled soloers, or heavy raiders.
Grade A - Level 81 to 100 = Very hard. Difficult to progress and high death penalties. Full raid spectrum including EPIC. Designed for players who seek penalties and extra difficult challenges.
Grade S - Level 101 to 150 = Permadeath (to level 100) is applied. Full raid spectrum. Designed exclusively for the permadeath crowd.

Guilds could form around the various caps, and development could continue in each grade (even by their popularity).  Nothing says that grade S should be the highest developed, in fact it would probably have the least content (that doesn't mean that grade B players can expect to survive in grade S areas).  Some rules would apply such as you can't engage in a lower grades "end game" content, and you can go back a grade if you choose.  If you decide to try out the next grade, you take all of your equipment from the previous one, but similar to expansions with added level caps, they will quickly become obsolete.

Expansions can now focus on content instead of upsetting the balance by adding new levels.

Now people can play at their own level, can raid if they want to or not, and the "extremists" will finally have a place to play. 

Devs can focus on new content and minigames and cool stuff like that instead of wasting resources trying to manage game changing scaling problems that arise from repeatedly increasing the cap over and over.

The "blob" of player advancement wouldn't leave huge scores of underutilized content in its wake.

There is also nothing which rules out the possibility of EPIC styled raid content for the lower grades, if grade D wants 40 man content, so be it.

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If you don't like the word "level" watch this, it's magic.

Grade D - Up to 40,000 skill points
Grade C - 40,001 to 60,000 skill points
Grade B - 60,001 to 80,000 skill points
Grade A - 80,001 to 100,000 skill points
Grade S - 100,001 to 150,000 skill points

Better yet do away with the terrible level concept all together.  I have always felt levels separate and segregate a community.

Originally posted by heremypet

I'm curious what everyone would think of this approach.

Basically levels are tiered, when you approach the end of your tier you can either do the "end game" content for that tier, or decide to move on.  Each "grade" provides a different level of difficulty, and I can see no better way of catering to a broad spectrum of players.

Grade D - Level 1 to 40 = WoWish noob levels anyone in a coma can do. Beginner end-game raid content.
Grade C - Level 41 to 60 = Starting to get harder, soloing takes a little skill. Varying levels of raid content.
Grade B - Level 61 to 80 = Still harder. You need a team effort. Soloing takes skill and guile. Wider spectrum of raid content, which more advanced encounters.
Grade A - Level 81 to 100 = Very hard. Difficult to progress and high death penalties. Full raid spectrum including EPIC.
Grade S - Level 101 to 150 = Permadeath (to level 100) is applied. Full raid spectrum.

Guilds could form around the various caps, and development could continue in each grade.  Some rules would apply such as you can't engage in a lower grades "end game" content, and you can go back a grade if you choose.  If you decide to try out the next grade, you take all of your equipment from the previous one, but similar to expansions with added level caps, they will quickly become obsolete.

Expansions can now focus on content instead of upsetting the balance by adding new levels.

Now people can play at their own level, can raid if they want to or not, and the "extremists" will finally have a place to play. 

Devs can focus on new content and minigames and cool stuff like that instead of wasting resources trying to manage game changing scaling problems that arrive from repeatedly increasing the cap over and over.

The most obvious problem is that you are splitting up the player base into a lot of discrete chunks and making 'cross-grade' interaction difficult.   So If I want to move on to a higher grade but my friends are comfortable in our current grade I either have to abandom my friends or play content that is not challenging to me.  That is already a bad problem at the 'end game' and this would only make it worse.

Further more you show your own biases in how you describe your version of the grades.  Since I personally disagree with the notion that harsher death penalties make content more challenging, I see no reason to increase the death penalties in higher grades.  Similarly I believe that group play presents merely diffferent challenges over solo play rahter than 'bigger' challenges I do not see why that has to be a defining characteristing of higher grades.

Originally posted by Venger

Better yet do away with the terrible level concept all together.  I have always felt levels separate and segregate a community.

You can't assume to cater to everyone and expect not to have a separation in the community.  That is what all the companies want if I understand correctly, to cater to everyone and have the biggest possible audience.

Although I'm not a huge fan of having to get to level X before the game changes into something you want to play, I do like the "permadeath" concept where it resets you to a specific high level. You still keep a lot of your necessary base skills to play the game, but the bonus stuff for not dying has to be re-earned. No idea if it would really work in practice though.

Originally posted by Venger

Better yet do away with the terrible level concept all together.  I have always felt levels separate and segregate a community.

I agree. Instead of levels, have quests that require the player to understand and know how to utilize their abilities. When they have "mastered" an ability, the player would have enough skill to complete a quest that unlocks a more powerful version of that ability or possible another ability that chains off the first. This gives the player the opportuntity to progressively understand their skills and at the same time does away with leveling.

The challenge would be to allow the character to continue development. One possibility would be to have all magical spells, scrolls that you find through out the game in either quests or drops. Possibly allow crafters to research existing weapons and try to find out how to make them. Melee could be studied by fighting various monster groups and locating traveling "masters".

Originally posted by Torik

The most obvious problem is that you are splitting up the player base into a lot of discrete chunks and making 'cross-grade' interaction difficult.   So If I want to move on to a higher grade but my friends are comfortable in our current grade I either have to abandom my friends or play content that is not challenging to me.  That is already a bad problem at the 'end game' and this would only make it worse.

Further more you show your own biases in how you describe your version of the grades.  Since I personally disagree with the notion that harsher death penalties make content more challenging, I see no reason to increase the death penalties in higher grades.  Similarly I believe that group play presents merely diffferent challenges over solo play rahter than 'bigger' challenges I do not see why that has to be a defining characteristing of higher grades.

 

You can't expect every friend you make to have the same style of play, besides nothing is set in stone, at this point the only thing you can't do together is kill raid bosses that are trivial to you and not your friend.

the grade below "increased death penalty" is not limited to exclude all the challenging content the players want, and the devs could easily accommodate them, especially depending on the popularity of that grade.  But you have to make things more difficult somehow if you want to include a larger audience (those who like death penalties, etc)

My original post isn't really a model on mechanics, but more of laying a foundation of different levels of difficulty so that development might go more smoothly, and a broader range of players can be included.

I'm sure something similar to this can happen without levels, with sci-fi or fantasy, and all sorts of other possibilities.

A nifty idea to be sure, but there are two MAJOR problems with it:

The first is that it has become widely accepted, expected and demanded that everyone, virtually regardless of personal skill, is able to progress to the level-cap. There is extremely little tolerance for having this, considered basic and universally available, point of progress to be restricted by any means. People rarely bother with the specifics behind a game. If it has levels, they ll advance as much as they can, usually as fast as they can. If you somehow are able to communicate this idea, or change it so it doesnt involve restricting character levels, I see a chance. But right now, anything that tells people they cannot get to the max-level because they may not be good enough players is just not going to fly.

The second problem is tied to the first: Rewards. At the different "caps", provided the playerbase accepts them, there must be some sort of endgame. This has to provide rewards, as the mainstream audience today plays for rewards, not necessarily fun. But with the difficulty scaling like this, you ll have to make the higher-up rewards better, which will lead to massive envy, or people just not wanting to bother with the lower tiers.

This results in people feeling hindered and restricted from the endgame "that counts", which usually is the most rewarding, which they cannot reach, or cannot beat.

In order to make a MMORPG for varying skill levels today, you really have to hide the skill inequality from the average player, because it quickly becomes a focus of frustration, anger, and envy. If you give those who are vastly better at the game vastly better rewards, those unable to attain them will be unhappy.... and statistics demand that the unhappy will likely be the majority, as the modern MMO audience is used to being told they are "the best" regardless of skill.

Originally posted by heremypet

Originally posted by Venger

Better yet do away with the terrible level concept all together.  I have always felt levels separate and segregate a community.

 

You can't assume to cater to everyone and expect not to have a separation in the community.  That is what all the companies want if I understand correctly, to cater to everyone and have the biggest possible audience.

UO did pretty good.  That is the problem with levels in general anyone +/- 5 levels is either too high or too low so you or the other person are worthless.  Where in UO that worthy gap was much softer.  You could focus on a select few skills and pretty quick get to a point where you could hunt with a 7x gm but it would take you a very long time to get to that 7x gm status yourself.

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the best reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

Originally posted by heremypet

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the only real reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

The problem with your thought process is we are all paying for he same product.  For your tier system to work each different tier would need to have a different cost.  Why would anyone in their right mind pay the same for a product but get less out of the product?

Originally posted by Venger

Originally posted by heremypet

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the best reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

 

The problem with your thought process is we are all paying for he same product.  For your tier system to work each different tier would need to have a different cost.  Why would anyone in their right mind pay the same for a product but get less out of the product?

But isn't that just like saying people who subscribe to a sandbox style game are being ripped off if they choose to only PVE and craft, or to PVP and not craft?

It all boils down to the childish mentality of the mainstream crowd that WoW has brought to the market doesn't it?  "We are all paying for the same product"  So we should all get the same color of sucker, right?  But companies want to appeal to a large audience, and they can't do that by treating every player the same.

I guess the only question left to ask is whether the group of players who have to have everything or they'll cry are bigger then all the niche sideline players put together.

Originally posted by heremypet

Originally posted by Venger

Originally posted by heremypet

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the best reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

 

The problem with your thought process is we are all paying for he same product.  For your tier system to work each different tier would need to have a different cost.  Why would anyone in their right mind pay the same for a product but get less out of the product?

But isn't that just like saying people who subscribe to a sandbox style game are being ripped off if they choose to only PVE and craft, or to PVP and not craft?

It all boils down to the childish mentality of the mainstream crowd that WoW has brought to the market doesn't it?  "We are all paying for the same product"  So we should all get the same color of sucker, right?  But companies want to appeal to a large audience, and they can't do that by treating every player the same.

I guess the only question left to ask is whether the group of players who have to have everything or they'll cry are bigger then all the niche sideline players put together.

Choice is the large aspect you seam to be missing.

It does boil down to childish mentality, but it is the childish need for items over growing your character at your own speed.  No doesn't need to be the same color but we all deserve one.  Sure they can, go back to character development over this childish look at my phat/leet/(insert idiot speak) item i got by sitting on my phat arse for 8 hours last night.

Unfortunately both side are whining like children for their phat loots and you'll keep making post about how your side deserves more over the other side.

Originally posted by Venger

Originally posted by heremypet

Originally posted by Venger

Originally posted by heremypet

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the best reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

 

The problem with your thought process is we are all paying for he same product.  For your tier system to work each different tier would need to have a different cost.  Why would anyone in their right mind pay the same for a product but get less out of the product?

But isn't that just like saying people who subscribe to a sandbox style game are being ripped off if they choose to only PVE and craft, or to PVP and not craft?

It all boils down to the childish mentality of the mainstream crowd that WoW has brought to the market doesn't it?  "We are all paying for the same product"  So we should all get the same color of sucker, right?  But companies want to appeal to a large audience, and they can't do that by treating every player the same.

I guess the only question left to ask is whether the group of players who have to have everything or they'll cry are bigger then all the niche sideline players put together.

Choice is the large aspect you seam to be missing.

It does boil down to childish mentality, but it is the childish need for items over growing your character at your own speed.  No doesn't need to be the same color but we all deserve one.  Sure they can, go back to character development over this childish look at my phat/leet/(insert idiot speak) item i got by sitting on my phat arse for 8 hours last night.

Unfortunately both side are whining like children for their phat loots and you'll keep making post about how your side deserves more over the other side.

I don't follow this at all.  You can choose to PvE or to PvP, and you could choose which tier to play in the same manner.  You can also choose to fight boss A or boss B but according to you, you should get loot from both of them even if you're only capable of beating boss A?

Please explain.

Originally posted by Venger

Originally posted by heremypet

Kinda stinks if you think about it, that the only real reason it wouldn't work is because people will be jealous of each other. You gotta wonder where would the line be drawn, If everyone has to get the same color of sucker or they might start crying, then eventually you have to start making level 1 critters and level 10 billion raid bosses both drop the same thing.

 

The problem with your thought process is we are all paying for he same product.  For your tier system to work each different tier would need to have a different cost.  Why would anyone in their right mind pay the same for a product but get less out of the product?

The product is being able to log on and play the MMO in any way you wish, in so far as game mechanics will let you.  You are not paying for the end result. 

If you like level-based progression in the traditional sense, sure, it sounds interesting.

I don't like traditional level-based games (AC and FE are about as much as I want to do with levels), so I'd probably avoid the game.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

If you like level-based progression in the traditional sense, sure, it sounds interesting.

I don't like traditional level-based games (AC and FE are about as much as I want to do with levels), so I'd probably avoid the game.

I like skill games too, really though as long as there isn't any stupid macroing, I don't care one way or the other.

Anyway, I modified my original post to include a skill based design, but I'm willing to bet it STILL won't be accepted because many people just wouldn't like the idea of walking past someone who got a bigger toy then they did, totally ignoring the effort that went into getting it.

Originally posted by heremypet

My original post isn't really a model on mechanics, but more of laying a foundation of different levels of difficulty so that development might go more smoothly, and a broader range of players can be included.

I'm sure something similar to this can happen without levels, with sci-fi or fantasy, and all sorts of other possibilities.

Blizzard, a company with more money than is reasonable, struggles to produce 1-2 raid instances a year.  In light of this fact, do you think it's reasonable that your model seems to propose like 8+ different raids?

I mean, sure...you can have 8+ different raids easy.  But they would be low quality in terms of gameplay.

Personally I consider WOW's raid bosses to be the most interesting fights in all the MMORPGs I've tried.  You might feel the same, and that'd be fair.  But if not, your own idea should seem all the more frightening to you because your designers would have even less time per instance to make the fights interesting than Blizzards' designers do!

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by heremypet

My original post isn't really a model on mechanics, but more of laying a foundation of different levels of difficulty so that development might go more smoothly, and a broader range of players can be included.

I'm sure something similar to this can happen without levels, with sci-fi or fantasy, and all sorts of other possibilities.

 

Blizzard, a company with more money than is reasonable, struggles to produce 1-2 raid instances a year.  In light of this fact, do you think it's reasonable that your model seems to propose like 8+ different raids?

I mean, sure...you can have 8+ different raids easy.  But they would be low quality in terms of gameplay.

Personally I consider WOW's raid bosses to be the most interesting fights in all the MMORPGs I've tried.  You might feel the same, and that'd be fair.  But if not, your own idea should seem all the more frightening to you because your designers would have even less time per instance to make the fights interesting than Blizzards' designers do!

Where is your data supporting that they are struggling?

I really, really, really like the core idea that you are presenting here. There are some things that I would do differently, mostly in the vein of not using a level (or power) based differentiation system. I am not sure what I would use, but there would have to be a system in which S players could go kill things with their C or B friends, but not let the content be trivial to them (think of a high level going into a low level dungeon in most MMOs).

I think many of the people here are missing the core of your point because of your use of level, even when you declare that that is not your point, and you can use other systems to make the differentiation. I say fie to you rude people, and ask you to argue the point at hand.

I do however disagree with your concept that group content should be relegated to the harder stuff. Perhaps the first tier should be only solo, or mostly solo, so that players get the hang of their chosen play style before they are set to working in a team. I think that is a key part of any game, and most games have you play solo for a while to learn the ropes, so to speak. I would suggest that later on, there is both solo and group content that is equally hard, with perhaps the S tier being an exception. You do not want to be killed to such a harsh penalty because you did not know any healing or escape abilities (or whatever caused you to die in that specific situation against a specific enemy; it has happened to all of us, thinking we would not have died if we had been playing our <insert class / archetype here>).

I do agree that death penalties should be increasingly harsh. Again I am not sure how to implement this, but I am not a designer. I think harsher death penalties are crucial to increasing the level of adrenaline and the risk/reward factor. I think this method would be a fantastic way to incorporate multiple death penalty ideas into a single game and have them work together.

I think, perhaps, a decent way to do this would be to use skill points, ala Eve. You start out at the lowest tier, and when you are a member of that tier your skill points are capped. That means you can be just as strong as a higher rank person, but very specialised, and at higher ranks you can focus on more and more skills so that you are a more well-rounded and versatile character. For this to work I do not think it should ever be possible for even S rank people to know the max of every skill, because this would trivialise everything in my mind. But then, there would need to be some way to reset your skills so that you could spend your points in another way. Also, this would mean the Eve time-based type progression would not work well with this.

Overall, I think this is brilliant, and if people would be constructive, could be worked into a full-fledged progression system that I would love to see implemented somewhere. I want to thank you for thinking outside the box.

Thanks, Leodious.  I thought a bit about what you said and a solution comes to mind.

I'll call it tagging.  in this system the difference in level and skill is 0, all tiers are the same.  You choose which tier you want and from then on those rules apply to your character and in each encounter, quest, and raid you face.  It's not easy to explain, so think of it this way:

A mob is wandering unaggroed.  This mob is a shell and has no tier.  When it becomes aggroed the person who tagged it applies their ruleset to the mob, which is probably just a scale or something, sooo basically mr grade D player aggroes a wolf, and at that moment the wolf becomes the grade D version, which isn't complex or anything, it just changes the pointer to the DB entry for that wolf I would guess..  So as grade D player is fighting grade D wolf, grade S can help if he wants to but, the wolf would still only drop grade D items and would only provide the appropriate XP or skill to grade D participants, since it was triggered by a grade D player.

The same could be applied to quests, and raids bosses and even items, skills, and  spells etc, just make sure the right grade of player gets the aggro, but the trigger could be done any number of ways.  Such a design would benefit greatly from instancing, although I see instancing as a lazy way to handle content delivery.

---

Originally posted by heremypet
Thanks, Leodious.  I thought a bit about what you said and a solution comes to mind.
I'll call it tagging.  in this system the difference in level and skill is 0, all tiers are the same.  You choose which tier you want and from then on those rules apply to your character and in each encounter, quest, and raid you face.  It's not easy to explain, so think of it this way:
A mob is wandering unaggroed.  This mob is a shell and has no tier.  When it becomes aggroed the person who tagged it applies their ruleset to the mob, which is probably just a scale or something, sooo basically mr grade D player aggroes a wolf, and at that moment the wolf becomes the grade D version, which isn't complex or anything, it just changes the pointer to the DB entry for that wolf I would guess..  So as grade D player is fighting grade D wolf, grade S can help if he wants to but, the wolf would still only drop grade D items and would only provide the appropriate XP or skill to grade D participants, since it was triggered by a grade D player.
The same could be applied to quests, and raids bosses and even items, skills, and  spells etc, just make sure the right grade of player gets the aggro, but the trigger could be done any number of ways.  Such a design would benefit greatly from instancing, although I see instancing as a lazy way to handle content delivery.

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I really like the shell idea. That could work in so many amazing ways, and would only take extra database entries of skills and power, not actual development of new skills and powers. Very efficient and clever.

I think it could even be used to solve the chronic solo/small group/raid debate. If a small group enters, the dungeon scales to their number. If a large group goes in, the same. If a single person enters, it scales to that. This could even prevent mobs from using abilities that might be unstoppable for a certain class/archetype. It would probably mean less actual content, but it would mean that all content would be equally accessible to everyone, regardless of playstyle.

In this way you could have tiers or ability and levels of power based on groups. I have seen much discussion about solo vs. groups, and this would stop that hard. I really like the idea that out in the world, you can attack a random mob, and its power is determined by your own, and by what you are willing to risk to take it on. That could mean a lot.

The problems that arise from this are PvP and powerleveling. How can you keep the person that knows all sorts of things from developing a strategy that could always kill that poor archer out there by themselves? And how can you stop people from grouping up with a high person who kills a high level S rank thing and gets the power from it.

I suppose you could use an Elderscrolls or Darkfall system of level skills, in a skill-based version of this concept, in which you can only level an ability by actually using it. That might help guide people towards what they like. I like that in those games because what you enjoy doing ends up being what you're good at.