Eliminating the Levelgrind

[Sinzygy]

(man, it's getting quite around here)

Most PBBGs nowadays (or at least the rpgs) have one major flaw: the continuous level grind.
The whole game is only based around on how fast a player can level and thus gaining strength.

Has anyone come up with a reasonable alternative to the level-based system? I once tried a attribute-only based game, but I lost interest in it after some time. I might start at it again, tho.

[Broda]

This is something I've put a lot of thought into over the years. I played EQ1 for years, played a bit of DAoC, some FFXI, EQ2, a lot of SWG at the beginning, some Lineage2, tried City of Heroes (talk about a grind), and played WoW way too much. They all had problems with level grinds.

I really enjoyed EQ2's crafting system. I liked SWG's original class tree structure - if you wanted to spread out into different professions it limited you pretty well so you couldn't become a master of all (I don't know what the current system is as the game turned to shit).

I've thought about using a skill-based system instead of a level based system. I think the problem with that is it's hard to gage your overall progress. It's a lot easier to say "I'm level 10" than it is to say "I have 10 points in pistols, 25 points in rifles, and 5 points in blades." I'm thinking about setting my game up as a mixture - skill-based but your level is based on the total skill points you have i.e. 50 total skill points (distributed) may work out to be level 5 so as you used your skills your would still level up overall but it would be specific to your characters strengths.

WoW was a little better on the grinding part (compared to the other games). It has enough quests to make it seem like you weren't grinding. Of course, some level ranges weren't as flushed out as others - getting from level 30 to 40 seemed to take quite a while for my priest. Also, the variety of quests helped - if you have 20 quests for a given level range and they all are of the "Go kill X monsters" type, it will feel like grinding. If you mix in some delivery quests, or quest chains that make the player explore a bit more and work their way through an area to get to a certain NPC, it won't feel like grinding because there was a short term goal to work towards. I would rather get a quest like this: "Go collect x rings and bring them to NPC A in the forest." As you collect the rings from mobs you are also moving towards the location of the NPC and you have to fight your way through the spooky forest to get to the NPC's hut. When you turn in the rings you get XP but you probably got more XP just getting to the NPC (as well as whatever loot the mobs dropped).

ok, I've probably rambled a bit in there so I'll stop now

[Zeggy]

You could set up a maximum level, so they only have a limited amount of stat points to use, and stats to train. Once they have reached the max level, they cannot change their stats anymore, so they have to think carefully about what they want to train.
If you don't want too much of a level grind, you could set the level cap quite low
Then after that the only way to improve is to take part in activities, such as battling other members, participating in contests, referring other members, or buying it (in-game currency or real money, your choice).

Even though leveling becomes a bore, you should still somehow reward players who are online often.

[Sinzygy]

Here's an idea that just popped up:

Make 2 types for each attribute/skill. One which you can train by paying money and one that only can be trained by actually using it.
So you'd have a skill "blade". You can train it up to level 50 for 100k Silver(or whatever currency you use) but to actually master the skill you'd need to go out and fight to further improve your skill. Or you could say that for each 2 trained points you need at least one fought points and vice versa (for 2 points gained through fighting, you need to gain one through training).

Of course, the level grind is still there here, but it might reduce it a bit since money can be gained otherwise (selling/making stuff, workin, etc)

hmm, just realised this is about the same as Zeggy suggested -_-

Of course, quests are a really nice way of gaining experience, but I haven't found a decent way to implement them in PBBGs

[Sinzygy]

Concerning the idea of Broda:

I think it would get quite complicated when deciding how to name a class based on the skill points from the player.
A hybrid of maybe both (level + skil based) could be the following:

Instead of just simply leveling up and allocating skill points, offer the player with level-up trees. For example, the warrior tree gets +2 in blade and +1 in str, while the magician tree gets +1 in fireball, +1 in intelligence, +1 in willpower. Each time, the player could chose one path. the one he choses the most is his primary class, the one he choses the second most is his secondary class. And each class gives certain special skills/boni.

So a lvl 10 Warrior with subclass lvl 5 fencer would get the rapier skill with an added bonus of + 3, or the lvl 8 necromancer with subclass lvl 7 sorceror could raise fire ghost. And so on. But this would require a lot of balancing and modifications to the individual classes.

[Zeggy]

I like the idea of skill trees, it gives the player lots of choices and freedom, and you can go really crazy with skill trees

Of course, you could also get rid of class names, it sort of narrows down the game a bit unless you have loads of different classes. You could have a different system, like titles, which depends on what you've done, not necessarily how well you've done, or how much you've played. (Like alignment, or fame)

This way, a level 100 user could be classed as 'Fearsome', but so could a level 20 user.

[Broda]

Yeah, originally SWG had profession trees. Each block up the tree would give you new skills or bonuses. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of what the profession trees looked like. They changed the way the game works so I don't think they have them anymore.

Edit:
Here are a couple examples -





To become a Bounty Hunter you had to first become a Master Scout and a Master Marksman:

[Zeggy]

Hmm, their skill naming isn't very creative
I used to play Ragnarok Online, which also has skills trees for different job classes.
You can view them online if you want: http://iro.ragnarokonline.com/

[Broda]

No it wasn't but each box gave you bonuses and/or new skills.

[codestryke]

See the autojoin on http://cypher.extremecast.com

Basically you can join multi-player missions while you are away. I took the code from a bot AI I was making for the game since it didn't have a lot of player's when it first started.

On State of Crime player's buy points with real money and can use that money to rank to a certain level. Player's have one of two things money or time, VERY few have both. For those that have time they can rank as normal, for those that don't have a lot of time but like to play can buy points and rank.. The balance of both player types seems to work out within the the context of the game.