Could an action-RPG work without leveling up?

[SajuukKhar]

Why does every bullshit criticism of old RPG's see 'number crunching' as some integral part of the combat that makes it too difficult? Dungeon Master? Was that full of 'number crunching'? Might and Magic? Gold Box? Ultima? Sure there were stats and modifiers but to speak as if the combat was some arcane thing which the poor 'average gamer' couldn't be able to work out is a load of fucking shit. Actual combat was for the most part simple to execute-either click on the beast or select an attack from a list and the computer does the rest...what's the fucking problem here? That you have to work out what attacks, weapons, spells work best? That's the REAL 'PROBLEM' with old RPG's isn't it ? That you actually had to THINK during combat encounters instead of clickety fucking click! Right ? "OH NO!, IT'S THAC0! Run boy and girls, he's gonna make our brain hurt!"


It's a paradigme, this "number-crunching" bullshit, nothing more. Media and developers help reinforce the notion that simple addition is so difficult that we're better off spamming the left-click button until the world explodes and we're covered in a pile of steaming achievement-bullshit that tells us how great we are and how fantastic it is that we were able to push that left-click button enough to kill Monster #76468467479


And Blade of Darkness melee combat destroyed Skyrim's, btw. But lets just look at first person games with action combat though for a better comparison.. Dark Messiah, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, Condemned, Zeno Clash and even Dead Island all had much better combat than Skyrim.

When did I ever say that number crunching made it too difficult? Old School RPG number crunch was never too difficult, just entirely unnecessary.

Your so lost in you hatred for anything not D&D your building these elaborate fantasy arguments out of nothing. This is why I don't like arguing with you, you make up all this shit to fuel your own fantasy of how no one likes to think.
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Also, having played Riddick, both Butcher Bay, and Assault on Dark Athena, to completion, I can safely say, its melee combat, wasn't that great either. Riddicks melee combat was mostly just the player character running up and spamming the attack button, occasionally hitting a block button, until the enemy died. You could do those special finishing moves, but they were entirely unnecessary.

Condmned was a FPS whose combat would have broken down the moment you tired to add the weapon diversity from Skyrim, or any RPG into it.

Dead Islands's combat is literally the same as L4Ds, I.e. melee weapons that pass right through enemies and all you do is spam attacks until the zombie died, with some occasional blocking. Again, not that better then Skyrim's.

And I haven't played Zero clash, so I cant comment on it. although from this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA0uTRHyGh8&feature=related
All I am seeing is
-Normal attacks
-A "power" attack
-A blocking move
-A scripted "kill cam" like attack that doesn't actually result in the enemies death, just taking more damage.
Pretty much everything Skyrim has. the only real difference I see is that character in Zeno Clash over-react to getting punched in a almost old-school arcade fighter way.

You are really just seemingly pulling random games out of your ass to try to hate on Skyrim.

 

[DoPo]

I never played FATE, or Shadowrun, or Dark Heresy.

Those, along with GURPS, are PnP RPGs. I haven't played the Shadowrun video games, so I don't know how much they stay in line with the PnP version, though. And FATE should not be confused with Fate - the latter (sometimes also called FATE) is a Diablo 2 clone. A Diablo 2 clone that's more like Diablo 2 than Torchligh. The FATE RPG (which is used in the Dresden Files RPG, if you're interested) has a free SRD [http://www.faterpg.com/dl/] but basically it uses a different system of advancement than levels or point buy - at certain points characters will be able to change and evolve bit by bit.

GURPS also has a free version GURPS Lite [http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/] if you want to take a look. It's a basic overview of the system but it contains what you need to know.

EDIT: Also, Bloodlines is using a stripped down version of Vampire: the Masquerade - it looks really similar at a glance. Sans dice rolling, that is.

Point is, there are plenty of levelless systems out there, successful ones at that, as well. It's not only D&D and everything that tries to emulate it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Point is, there are plenty of levelless systems out there, successful ones at that, as well. It's not only D&D and everything that tries to emulate it.

I know there were other systems out there, I just didn't like them , or really haven't had enough experience with them to make an opinion.

Also comparing Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines to Vampire: the Masquerade isn't helpful. I haven't looked at the normal Vampire: the Masquerade is an even longer time.

 

[In Search of Username]

Well, adjusting your playstyle to fit a build, or vice versa, is part of the appeal of RPGs. If it was all done automatically they'd be considerably less interesting.

 

[Something Amyss]

The real problem I see with this type of system is that, eventually, every character you play is going to get hit, a lot, turning everyone into massive health monsters.

That and every system I've seen close to this ends up with really shitty options you can get accidentally. This tends to frustrate people, especially if their are still finite slots.

 

[SajuukKhar]

That and every system I've seen close to this ends up with really shitty options you can get accidentally. This tends to frustrate people, especially if their are still finite slots.

That, and having unlimited skill slots makes the game terribly unbalanced.

Its doom in both directions.

 

[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.