DRPGs: Leveling up at an inn or in dungeons?

[turkishronin]

Which leveling up system do you think is superior? personally I prefer games where you can just level up your characters in dungeons since going back and forth between town and the dungeon grows quite tedious, it almost discourages exploration in favor of grinding

 

[aweigh]

leveling up in towns is not an inconvenience if the game is planned around it. it isn't some random arbitrary decision, it's part of the design, it affects the way exploration works and it heavily affects how the game handles player psychology. leveling only in towns does not "discourage exploration", it makes it more complex.

either way is fine, in town only or level-anywhere, but the game needs to be designed around it; and if it's level-anywhere another important decision is if the level up gives you an instant restoration in the field, that also needs to be taken into account when designing the way dungeons work in the game.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It really depends on the game. I'll adapt no matter the case.

 

[Matador]

Each way can work depending on the overall design, but I like how Wizardry way adds tension. In modern games Dark Souls also forces you to got to a bonfire to level UP, with the risk of losing the souls needed to level up if you die. So I'd say I prefer the Inn (safe place) level up.

 

[Max Damage]

I prefer leveling on spot, it's not like it trivializes the games anyway. Having to go back to town just because 1 of your characters dinged 2 steps from entrance is dumb, on the other hand. "Guys, I know you all had plans to do some treasure hunting this day, but if you agree to wait just one more day, I can disarm those chests 5% better tomorrow. Let's call it a day after having killed these 3 goblins, please?"

 

[Damned Registrations]

Levelling up in town only makes sense if it's a complex affair. Like if you've got stat points to assign, multiclassing to do, spells/abilities to purchase, etc. In that case moving it to town can prevent it from breaking the game flow up. Especially if you level up frequently for small rewards, and a bigger party means more frequent level ups. This is why it works like this in games like FFT or Ogre Battle series, it'd be retarded to be pausing the fight to browse your list of skills and pick which one to learn, while character xp is just an automatic tiny stat boost that does very little. In something like the old Might and Magic games it made less sense, since all you really needed to do was stop by the mage guild to buy all the new spells you could learn. It really only served to make the super early game (first 5 levels or so) more dangerous and feel more rewarding to get back to safety and level, since the gains were so huge. Going back to town to bump someone from level 19 to 20 was just a waste of time. Wizardry on the other hand, you might end up changing someone's class when you get back to town and crippling them in the short term, doing that in a dungeon would make no sense.