Favorite Form of Progression

[luj1]

I liked Guild Wars, where you quickly hit level cap but then built up a collection of "skills" which you can only equip a limited number of. A good system for a more tactically flexible game.

crazy no one attempted that since

it was an amazing deckbuilding system with 1000+ skills

 

[easychord]

I liked Guild Wars, where you quickly hit level cap but then built up a collection of "skills" which you can only equip a limited number of. A good system for a more tactically flexible game.

crazy no one attempted that since

it was an amazing deckbuilding system with 1000+ skills

It technically wasn't a deckbuilder since you didn't pull your skills blind from a stack, they were all there, arranged as you wanted them. It wasn't even really random how to get the skills, as they were quest rewards. In game design terms, Guild Wars 2 was an act of criminal vandalism, but they wanted World of Warcraft players more than Guild Wars players.

 

[luj1]

In game design terms, Guild Wars 2 was an act of criminal vandalism, but they wanted World of Warcraft players more than Guild Wars players.

nailed it

 

[oldmanpaco]

The game I've always thought had the best progression was BG2.

1) All characters level at different times. Even characters of the same class will have different XP amounts. This means instead of leveling up everyone in your party every few hours, you are leveling up someone every hour.
2) Spell progression is tied to your ability to find spell scrolls.
3) Item progression has the ability to completely change how a charter plays. A belt of giant strength, gauntlets of dexterity, or a ring of wizardry change what you do with a character.

 

[Kruyurk]

I really like the progression in Dark Souls. There is no character level or class. The gains in stats are gradual yet you can have substantial jumps forward when you have a lot of souls to spend after defeating many enemies and ultimately a boss. Progression really feels like a reward and the consequence of accomplishing something difficult, no just some xp meters that fills up as time goes by and that will grant you a new level every few hours. The progression in stats is also nicely connected to the progression in equipment, you are thinking about both when developing you character (but less so for magic focused characters).

And all this also ties with the progression outside of the game, when you as a player increase your skill and as a result change how you develop your character. You ditch the shield and the heavy armor that made you feel safe at first, because you now became confident in your skill. This newfound freedom from clothes allows you to equip that ultra heavy sword that seemed unusable just a few hours prior. Your previous sword looks like a toothpick in comparison. You feel a bit embarrassed about the time you spent hiding behind your shield, now that you realized that enemies can not hit you if you dodge every attack and splatter them onto the ground with your gigantic sword. You became a killing machine in underwear, a true barbarian, reminiscent of mighty Conan himself. And most importantly, you arrived at that glorious state not because of some class selected during character creation, but because of what you accomplished in the game and how you approach it as a player.

 

[PapaPetro]

I'm starting to see/enjoy metaprogression more in games.
I like carrying things over from runs; especially knowledge for future runs.

 

[Artyoan]

I would favor a mix of these:

1. Individual Combat Levels for each party member, gained through killing monsters. Gaining a level means statistical increases to combat stats.
2. Individual Training Levels for each party member, gained by finding and paying trainers scattered all over the place, like MM6/7. Paying for an increase means new skills/spells and a trait. Increasing costs and break points for needing to find more advanced trainers.
3. Collective Party Level, gained by doing quests. Gaining a level means selecting from a pool of traits for the whole party, usually non-combat related. Like less need to sleep, healing more on rest, less chance of being ambushed at rest, better crafting, etc.
4. Individual spell/weapon school/type levels, gained by using spells from a certain school or weapons of a certain type. If you only use pyromancy, eventually you get to select from traits, often with upsides and downsides, for the entire school. Same with weapons. Only a handful of levels per school. Trainers can also boost these as a massive gold sink for low returns, basically as an end-game type thing.

Emphasize both versatility and direct growth while allowing for diverging ratios depending on actions taken.

 

[rubinstein]

I liked Guild Wars, where you quickly hit level cap but then built up a collection of "skills" which you can only equip a limited number of. A good system for a more tactically flexible game.

crazy no one attempted that since

it was an amazing deckbuilding system with 1000+ skills

it was "1000+ skills", on top of hundreds of other things, on top of dozens of other things, on top of pvp-ers raging at devs, whenever their mains get nerfed. GW was too massive to properly handle its own complexity. it lacked scalability necessary to handle endless content pipeline. there were many other core GW features considered rather "unsexy" in mid 00s, but no point discussing them here, we would go offtopic.

And Anet admitted it with GW2. They decided to "play meta" and they created this we-cant-admit-it-but-its-going-to-be-a-WoW-clone game that will be easier to expand upon, maintain, balance, and profit from. the industry noticed it and said to themselves: "we shall not repeat this mistake". in the eyes of industry GW is a failure. it means nothing 6M copies (whatever way it was counted) were sold and people still farm DoA or Urgoz in 2023. GW lost.

i also enjoy this progression system, but i can understand why GW format was abandoned. i can see why nobody wants to create a MMO like this... and why nobody wants to make a single-player game like this. if you look into it, its definitely not crazy. i think it is unfortunate that GW deckbuilding was implemented first in a pvp-focused CORPG (so basically a small scale MMO), so its associated with this genre. single-player focused devs must be unaware that it can be also used in a single-player tactical rpg. but even if they were aware, they will very likely pick a system that brings bigger audience.

fairly decent video explainging GW's demise, its pretty long

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Individual Combat Levels for each party member, gained through killing monsters.

If by this you mean the killer gets the XP, that fucking sucks.

 

[Artyoan]

Individual Combat Levels for each party member, gained through killing monsters.

If by this you mean the killer gets the XP, that fucking sucks.

No. Just that each individual has their own tracked experience instead of a collective experience bar for the party.

 

[Frozen]

No levels. World becomes more challenging as you go through the story, but you stay the same. Only way you "level up" is by becoming more skillful in playing the game and itemization that is tied to you being better (finding rare good stuff) that should make you expand on your skill in manipulating the gameplay, not be cheat code OP item.

Levels are regressive, limiting, static and unrealistic relict of a past for a player character, same as redundant turn-based combat.

RPG-s should be more focused on finding ways to be more realistic not stuck in stupid stale ideas where there is no true challenge.

And here is a REALLY unpopular opinion- action RPGs are the future and true evolution of the genre, but real action that requires skill not just left click mashing.

People like "classic" because it's easy-spend some time, unpause and even if it's hard at times you will eventually get it with ease most of the time.

Because all RPGs are for normies formula is pretty simple and there is really no difficulty in playing any RPG even in highest difficulty. It's just min-maxing in invested time. Anyone can do it.

Real challenge is inventing new game mechanics and systems that are challenging and rewarding in becoming skillful, that don't brake if you go back at the beginning with you being too OP -every opponent within restriction of a gameplay should have a chance to kill you if you are being retarded and play badly. There is a certain lvl of skill in all current RPGs but its minimal and mostly reduced to you getting use to UI and what button to push while you are way over leveled as game progresses.

Games that have some small elements of these ideas and concepts that I played are The Witcher 1, Dark Mesiah of M&M, Warhammer Dark Omen, Dishonored...hell, I would even go back to early 90s arcade fighting games like Mortal Combat and Street Fighter for ideas of combos as a way to explore new ways to infuse player skill in gameplay. Also, I havent play them but i assume Souls games may have some elements that could be used.

 

[PapaPetro]

GW was too massive to properly handle its own complexity. it lacked scalability necessary to handle endless content pipeline.

I wish they could figure out non-linear scaling because whenever they do scale, it's linear, predictable and lazy.

Individual Combat Levels for each party member, gained through killing monsters.

If by this you mean the killer gets the XP, that fucking sucks.

No. Just that each individual has their own tracked experience instead of a collective experience bar for the party.

I always thought it was weird that they treat XP as a scarce resource in party play like that (they can reward whatever/however they want).
I guess it all boils down to perceived fairness between the opportunity costs of solo play vs. group play.
Like why would you group if solo is better for you and vice versa?

Overall devs have a lot of para-social control in their design here; they can make your party members cutthroat with each other over resources, or synergistic, or independent etc.

 

[Just Locus]

Because all RPGs are for normies formula is pretty simple and there is really no difficulty in playing any RPG even in highest difficulty. It's just min-maxing in invested time. Anyone can do it.

 

[Frozen]

What confuses you?
RPGs are for normies, if you invest time and prepare as you level up, game becomes easier as you progress.

 

[janior]

microtransactions

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What are y'all's favorite forms of progression in RPGs?

Logarithmic

 

[HeatEXTEND]

What confuses you?
RPGs are for normies, if you invest time and prepare as you level up, game becomes easier as you progress.

That's not what confusion looks like.

 

[Hag]

Progression without skill points, trees or xp, only by getting better at the game.