Could an action-RPG work without leveling up?

[CheckD3]

It's defiantly do-able. The thing is though, that you need growth to feel more accomplished, so instead of XP and Lving up, you'd have to do something such as keep count of kills or strength of enemies defeated, and if a quota is met, you're taught a new combo. You can start off with all the combos, but by reaching a milestone, you gain knowledge of how to do it, or something is simplified. So if on PS3 you're playing and there's a great move but to do it you need to hit X, X, O, O, spin the left stick twice clockwise, the right counter-clockwise 3 times then up down left left, but when you reach the milestone you can hit X, O, hold square X to do it, then you'd be rewarding a player.

The argument as I re-read my example is simplifying is a type of leveling up, but I don't see it that way. I see it as, development as a character, as one would learn in real life. You can't run until you walk, until you stand, until you've crawled. The example is just very exaggerated

 

[Jake Dilworth]

runescape leveling system?

 

[shrekfan246]

It depends on how 'RPG' you want your 'Action-RPG' to be? It could be argued that in a way, games like Okami, God of War, Devil May Cry, or The Legend of Zelda are 'Action-RPGs', even though most people would classify them as 'Action-Adventure'. There's a very thin line, because most people seem to view the bulk of the actual 'RP' in 'RPG' to mean "levels and stats and numbers that get bigger and bigger as I spend more time playing the game".

If the leveling system were to be removed, there would still need to be some basis for progression in an action-oriented game.

Technically speaking, I'd say that although there's a "Soul Level" meter present with the game, Dark Souls does a fair job of presenting an Action-RPG without a 'leveling up' system. Sure, stat gains do have a tangible effect, but unless you're gaining them in massive amounts it'll never be enough all by itself to topple the difficulty of a boss who's grounding you into paste.

But typically if there isn't a leveling system of some sort, people won't classify it as an RPG.

 

[HardkorSB]

I've been thinking about the leveling system in the last 3 Elder Scrolls games and how it differs from most action-RPGs by making the player use skills to level up instead of leveling up to get skill points.

From what I've seen of that series, it seems to entirely possible to make an action-RPG without any point distribution or buying of skills/abilities/perks/attributes/upgrades whatsoever. A game where the player could gain different abilities, upgrades, skills, perks, and attributes based on how they play the game. In theory, this system would give the same sense of progression present in a normal action-RPG, but without the middleman. In theory, A game like this could automatically mold a character into one perfectly suited for a playstyle without actually needing to plan out stats for that playstyle.

For example, a character could gain strength by inflicting melee damage on enemies, health by taking a lot of damage, or agility by dodging enemy attacks. They could even gain perks by simply using the weapons and tactics that those perks benefit.

It seems to me like it would work, it could potentially be the ultimate way of streamlining an action-RPG while still making each character unique. It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to curve exploitation either.

I'm not completely sure if a system like that could work or not though since I haven't seen a game or even a PC mod that uses a system like this, so I want to know what you guys think.

1. Do you think an action-RPG could work without the manual distribution of points or buying of skills, abilities, perks, attributes, or upgrades?

2. Do You think a system like this would work better or worse than the standard stat point distribution and ability/perk/upgrade buying systems?

It seems that any game that has stats and upgrades is called an RPG these days.
Isn't an RPG suppose to have you play a role?
For example, what made Mass Effect an RPG - the fact that you could choose your character's background, gender and appearance, play the game displaying different personality traits and that your actions and the choices you've made had actual consequences on the world you were in OR the fact that you could upgrade your skills, armor and weapons?

 

[Skratt]

I don't like the numbers and perks, but I like progress. The game could work without numbers if you could slide the difficulty around dynamically. I'd also need to unlock skills as I behaved a certain way. I think you'd either need a progress indicator or your skills would be based on how you played the story with the rewards being the unlocks instead of useless gear.

 

[Nannernade]

It's the sense of overcoming obstacles over time being able to defeat bigger and better foes, so I'm going to have to go with no.

 

[Aeonknight]

You could argue Dark Souls did it. Sure there was soul levels, but soul levels was an arbitrary number. Didn't really mean anything except how many times you buffed any particular stat. And considering the entire game can be played and beaten going through with no equipment at soul level 1, I'd say it meets the requirement.

 

[deathbydeath]

Umm, why has no one mentioned Stalker yet?

 

[DoPo]

It seems that any game that has stats and upgrades is called an RPG these days.
Isn't an RPG suppose to have you play a role?

No, not really. Computer RPGs are a different beast than "normal" RPGs. Yes, the former derive from the latter but are not really the same thing. There are some aspects shared, yes, but cRPGs are mostly about "RPG elements" (essentially stats and stuff) and some choices. Even then it gets sketchy, if you look in closer. The requirement to "play a role" is meaningless, since that's essentially every game ever made - you play the role of Gordon Freeman in HL, you play the role of a god in Black and White, you play the role of Faith in Mirror's Edge and yet these three don't have a lot in common. Compare and contrast with TES, where you play the role of the current hero.

What you mostly need for an RPG (aside from stats) is choice, yes, and the ability to make decisions that could change stuff. But that's up to the plot to implement, "choice" doesn't need to fall under the mechanics of the game. Shepard has Paragon/Renegade meters, and yet it's the missions and dialogue that fill it, not the "Shoot, get XP, level up" part. In TES, your choices are entirely separate from your levelling system. And so on and so forth.

 

[Ranylyn]

Castlevania - Harmony of Despair (1-4 players local, 1-6 players online. 2d Sidescrolling Metroidvania. About 15 bucks on the PSN and XBLA)

While many of the games in the series adapted RPG elements, including level-ups, HoD didn't have levels. It just had gear. Your power would range from pathetic to godlike based entirely on the equipment you collected and used.

Some characters DID have grind-like aspects to them, don't get me wrong. Soma and Alucard are the only ones who just found new weapons instead of making their existing ones stronger via using their subweapons a lot ot collecting spells. But EVERYONE had the same 300 HP and 100 MP unless it was affected by gear, and defense would never be affected by anything but.

 

[BrotherRool]

Grinding is the real problem, you've got to move the player into a mindset where he doesn't want to grind and where the focus is on the playstyle rather than the leveling (and there's a small conflict there with the desire to level, but games like KotoR do a good job of getting rid of grinding, so it's not insurrmountable)


Basically these systems tend to be really unfun to grind. In fact any grinding system based on using abilities rather than focusing on the end result (FFX-2, LotR:Third Age etc) has this problem, because suddenly we've got conflicting goals. Sure you can kill the wolf, but to level you actually want to land as many hits on the wolf as possible instead, or take as much health damage as possible and the conflict of interests can make things boring or encourage people to stretch out battles.

This problem even goes a higher level up, really in RPGs you want experience for a quest on completing it's object rather than for completing it in a specific way (unless you want to encourage more difficult play ala Deus Ex: HR ). It feels bad if you get less XP for taking the diplomatic option than the kill everything option.

Still if the fun can be placed on playing the game rather than the levelling and grinding, the system should work well and be fun

 

[The Lunatic]

Uh, nobody brought up Monster Hunter yet?

Cause, that basically fits this exactly.

 

[Stainlesssteele4]

Good power creep could replace leveling any day.
Take Monster Hunter for example. All stats are derived from gear. The constant flow of better gear replaces leveling completely, although by proxy.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It definitely could, you could have story-based char growth.



The problems arise when you wanna play char X but you don't wanna do the choices which correspond to your preferred playstyle. Say for example that the big weapon using class is some kind of evil clan...and you wanna play a good guy. You'd be limited to good-guy char-development only.





I think a mix of ALL things is the best. Have levels, have the flowcharts, also have some skills you gain through story mode.

 

[piinyouri]

I wish RPG's would die.
So these threads could die as well.

 

[Joccaren]

Could it work?
Yeah, no reason for it not to.

Better, worse, same?
Objectively its just a different system. Personally, I wouldn't enjoy it. I'll take Skyrim as an example.
Now, lets say this system was implemented fully. I decide I want to become a ninja assassin dodger dude. I got into fights, but I'm crap at dodging. I can never time it right, never move out of the way in time, and all round just fail at it. With this system, I could NEVER be a class with lots of dodging, as I personally can't do that.
Of course, I'm not sure how a dodging skill would work in an action RPG, but we'll go with sneaking here. I suck at sneaking in Skyrim, and as such I'm never able to play a sneaking character. It is not in my personal skillset.
Come an RPG like DA:O, however, and I am a master of stealth. I don't need to try over and over again at a task I'm hopeless at to be able to sneak, I simply need to put a couple of skill points in that skill, then move on.

I wouldn't like said system as it would limit how I could play to what I was good at. I play RPGs to be something I'm not. If I can't dodge well, can't sneak well, can't block with good timing, or fail to do anything else, a class revolving around said skills is lost to me. That's not fun for me.

 

[TephlonPrice]

Yeah, something like that could work. Hell, it worked in GTA: San Andreas despite it not being an RPG. The thing there: you didn't level up traditionally; you leveled up your skills in areas (muscles, stamina, gun combat, driving, flying, etc.) by doing said activities or doing activities that allow for training said activities. And it worked there, so in an RPG, maybe it could work.

 

[Vankraken]

Yeah, something like that could work. Hell, it worked in GTA: San Andreas despite it not being an RPG. The thing there: you didn't level up traditionally; you leveled up your skills in areas (muscles, stamina, gun combat, driving, flying, etc.) by doing said activities or doing activities that allow for training said activities. And it worked there, so in an RPG, maybe it could work.

Yeah i was about to post GTA:SA then i saw your post.

Basically having the goal of improving your skill instead of achieving an experience point where you go from level A to level B is more realistic to how people get better than Billy doing yard work until he levels and suddenly he improves his cooking and public speaking skills. One of the things that happened in San Andreas is that at different skill thresholds you "unlocked" new improvements to using these guns that could easily be "Perks" or "Talents" in other games.

 

[DanDeFool]

Last time I checked, Final Fantasy 2 already exists. It was just as grindy as any other Final Fantasy, only slightly easier to abuse.

I don't think this system is inherently better or worse than the conventional method, only different. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this classless, become-a-god, I-can-master-everything type game.

Yeah, Square had the idea before Bethesda and the idea might even pre-date FF2.

If memory serves, Chrono Cross has a similar system too.

As did Dungeon Siege. You had four skill bars corresponding to melee, ranged, and two types of magic. You needed to meet the skill cap in order to use certain weapons, armor, and spells. Though, now that I think about it, that may have just been how they handled skills, not levels per-se.

I think persistent worlds (i.e., MMOs) could benefit from some experimentation with the EVE online method of training skills in real-time. Also, I think that Devil May Cry offers a viable alternative, in that you never really "level up" but rather buy skills and upgrades to your health and magic. Terraria did something similar, and it had a RPG-like progression.

 

[Gatx]

And here I thought the OP meant an RPG like game without stat tracking at all, which would basically be Zelda and possibly Metroid and/or Metroidvania. A lot of people continually make the mistake of calling Zelda an RPG anyway.

The best and most simple way of streamling an action RPG in my opinion is rather than tracking stat growth, you just stick with a very standard leveling system - gain experience, level up, stats are assigned according to your class. No muss no fuss and you get the gratification of a "LEVEL UP!" sign. If you want further differentiation among characters the game could offer branching class trees. Every character doesn't need to have unique stats to be unique, those are differences the player might not even notice, just having different play styles is enough.