Way back when Arena.net first started discussing Guild Wars 2, and being undecided how levels would be handled, I knew this would happen. For a brief moment, I had hope they would go with one of their early plans which involved a potentially cap-less leveling system; in essence what they have now in Guild Wars 1, only the number over your head changes as a visible means to show other players how much time you’ve put into the game, while the level itself wouldn’t matter in terms of gameplay because Guild Wars is not a game about levels the same way all our DikuMMO’s are. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that Arena.net would not be able to resist the easy *ding!* progression of Diku – mostly thanks to World of Warcraft’s popularity, but I tend to put the blame squarely on EverQuest since it was the first truly successful MMORPG, and was almost literally a graphical DikuMUD.
Today’s Guild Wars 2 blog unveils the in-development leveling progression – which has a level cap of 80. Sound familiar? Gee, thanks, Blizzard…
On an extremely positive note, Arena.net is completely eliminating the XP curve that has always been prevalent in level-based games, since the original D&D. Instead, they’re taking an approach that is somewhat more akin to that seen in Mass Effect 2. In ME2, it takes exactly 1,000 XP to level; that number never changes. The GW2 blog doesn’t specifically say so but my instinct says GW2 will keep the “numbers get bigger as we level” for everything: health, damage, experience, etc. but they have the mathematics carefully calibrated so that if it took us two hours to level from 1 to 5 then it should take those same two hours to level from 70 to 73.
Dissecting the last few paragraphs of the blog entry we have:
…progression in Guild Wars 2 is way more than just leveling. We have achievements, trait collection, crafting, dungeons, skill collection, items, and much more.
Standard MMO fare everyone already expects; no surprise here.
Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content, but our world is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do.
Then why bother with that XP bar and levels when Guild Wars was about skills not levels?
And because our world is ever-changing and dynamic, you can play our content again and again!
Dynamic and repeatable content does not require levels but collecting and combining skills could make each repetition a little bit fresher of an experience, and that was ultimately the point of Guild Wars’ gameplay and progression. Not levels.
It’s been said that the act of leveling should only be enough to teach you about the class you play, and Guild Wars pretty much nailed that theory in both Factions and Nightfall where you start on a “noob island” and play through some of the backstory while you level to 20 (or very close to it) and the game gradually teaches you all the basics, then unleashes you into the actual game, playing through the actual campaign story which all takes place at level 20. I’ve always held the opinion that having those 20 levels at all was a mistake and if Guild Wars had simply started us off teaching us about skill collecting and putting together a good build, that would also have eliminated much of the confusion from the Diku crowd who only knew levels+gear=progression that didn’t work in Guild Wars.
Now that we know Guild Wars 2 will have those 80 levels, we also know the Diku simpletons will “get it” but will that be a good thing? Raph Koster writes that learning is fun, but if game after game after game has the exact same type of levels, what are players learning? They’re certainly not learning that levels are not the answer to everything.
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We still don’t know what gaining a level actually means. I.e. how many attribute points etc…
It seems odd that Arena.net would move away from their winning GW leveling formula in favour of a more WoW style one. It might be worth waiting for some more info to come in before waving the ‘diku fail’ flag.
I agree with you in premise though.
I agree with Crimson here, levels are just some progress indicator – the key here is what features they assign to that indicator.
If it is just skill points similar to in GW, then it would not be a concern. The premises for their dynamic content really says that they cannot do a traditional level separation of content, where mob and player characteristics are tied to those levels.
I really, really hope they have come up with their own type of levels rather than the D&D/Diku style which has broken multiplayer features in all Diku-based MMO’s. I still have faith in Arena.net but it dwindles at times hearing things like this.
Food for thought considering I’m having so much fun in GW right now. As one of those DIKU noobs I’m still perplexed when people tell me that all the playing I’m doing right now (getting to 20) is pretty much irrelevant. I’m having fun – how can it be irrelevant?
But that’s a different kettle of fish. I can bear levels and such quite easily. What I really can’t stand anymore is the endless item grind that forms the basis of WoW and most of the other games out there. I may be amaze-bound rat, but I don’t like the freaking gear wheel, okay?!
@Ysharros: Don’t think of it as irrelevant, simply that the leveling process (this is less true in Prophecies, however) is essentially training you about skill collection, rune upgrades, Heroes (if you’re in Nightfall), etc. while you play through the backstory of that campaign. The “real game” all takes place at level 20, which is why we say levels and gear don’t matter. In a manner of speaking there is still a gear treadmill in GW, but it’s a self-imposed one, mostly for cosmetic purposes. I still have a list of at least 3 items that I want for my monk despite already having items with the exact stats I was after — I just want the cooler look. All armor has a max value; all weapon types have a max damage. Runes can slightly tweak certain aspects of how the weapons function, and that essentially becomes part of your build: your 8 skills + weapon type + modifications if you fully min/max that build.
As a 5-year veteran, if I login and see a 20 over your head, all that tells me is that you’ve played the tutorial, most likely have max armor and max weapons, and have enough skills to choose from to create enough of a build to be useful to the group. Not quite the same as seeing the 80 on someone in EQ2 or WoW, or whatever level cap in whatever Diku-MMO.
I agree, they needed a better tutorial system for us die hard Diku people. I eventually got the concept but only after being dragged around by a bunch of friends one weekend and by then I had lost interest. I will say that GW is more fun if you can run around by yourself and not be dragged around, but if they had an improved tutorial system then the dragging around wouldn’t have been needed.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t explain that well. Power leveling is good when your in a Diku but not in a game like GW. It takes the wind out of the sails if you know what I mean.
But if they keep true to the concept of GW and add elements that will attract more of the Diku crowd then GW2 will be a huge success.