Poll: Multiplayer without leveling up. Would it work?

[geK0]

Levels are pretty much just a way of padding the game's content and making players feel more invested in the game. It seems VERY unnecessary for a lot of competitive online games (LoL, CoD, battle field etc) because you're always playing against other players and it just forces an uneven playing ground between new and old players (who should already have a skill advantage over new players anyway). I find that in MMOs though, leveling helps a lot with the learning curve by introducing more complex mechanics as the player levels up, and gives players a reason to explore each area in the game (why do all the quests in an area if not for leveling up).

I have to admit though, there is a certain glee I get when unlocking a new weapon in CoD or a new rune slot in LoL and hitting the level cap does make me a little sad to not have that experience anymore.

But yea, I voted yes, because there have been tons of games that worked just fine without leveling systems.

 

[General Vagueness]

What I'm wondering is whether multiplayer with leveling up can work. I've heard an enormous amount of bad things about it being in newer CoD games, I've heard some bad things about it being in other games, and having an aspect or form of it added to Halo has made Halo 4 worse (among other things).

 

[The White Hunter]

MMORPGs?
No, you need the levelling up.

FPS/FIFA/TPS/RTS/4X/Whatever - Yes, and I'd prefer them without a stupid level up component that locks out all your attachments and half the good weapons until you actually play the game. BF3 is somewhat alright in this; it fails thanks to having to unlock the attachments, but the very first unlock for Assault is the best all round assault rifle [Not the best at any given task, but close in all tasks].
Crafting as you play is another thing I wouldn't really like as it requires you to play to be able to get the good stuff, which leaves those that have been playing for longer at an immediate massive advantage over those who have just joined. Honestly I'd just prefer achievements, like the BF3 dogtags, that unlock a purely aesthetic bonus. Its BS getting killed by a player not because they're more skilled than you, but because they've been playing long enough to get some arbitrary unlock that is OP as all hell.

Battlefield 3 also falls flat on it's face doing that with the marksman class. High drop, low damage semi-automatic rifles, when really all I want is that SV98 and a bipod.

OT: Yeah, it'd work fine, thats the best kind of multiplayer, means you can jump straight in and experiment with ALL THE TOYS.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You mean like Quake, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 etc.

No, it would never work.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

You mean like Quake, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 etc.

No, it would never work.

Poe's Law Alert!

(Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing)

In this case replace fundamentalism with sarcasm.

Yeah, OP's original question was rather ill thought out.

As for people who like 'Skinner's box' style multiplayer? They can stay where they are.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

I take it you have never played Counter Strike.

 

[NardBasket]

I think it would of course work, but I much prefer multiplayer with progressive levelling, like in MMORPG's and some online shooters.

 

[Joccaren]

Battlefield 3 also falls flat on it's face doing that with the marksman class. High drop, low damage semi-automatic rifles, when really all I want is that SV98 and a bipod.

OT: Yeah, it'd work fine, thats the best kind of multiplayer, means you can jump straight in and experiment with ALL THE TOYS.

IMO the worst part is the vehicle unlocks.
First time playing in a tank? Don't worry, we'll set you up against an enemy with rapid reload, ablative plating and homing shells whilst you have just the basic smoothbore, just so its even. And no deploying smoke to avoid homing missiles, you've got to unlock that.
First time in a Jet? Don't worry, that guy over there has homing missiles, flares and a RADAR, you just have your machine gun, just so its fair. Nope, don't expect to be able to deploy flares to stop his missiles, you've got to unlock that.
Its the same with all land and air vehicles with unlocks, which really sucks. Unless you've been playing them for a fair while, you are at a major disadvantage when fighting against someone who has, regardless of their skill.
And don't even get me started on the bastards that would somehow fit 3 stealths on their jet so even after 30 seconds your homing missile wouldn't lock onto them -.-
Stupidest system I've ever heard of if you want people to start playing your game.

 

[II2]

It USED to WORK, just FINE... *grumble grumble*

DOOMs, Quakes, UT, TF Classic, Tribes 1 & 2, Battlefields > 2, Counterstrike, Battlezone, Halo 1, Crysis 1 / Crysis Wars, etc etc etc...

Also all the RTS / RTT / TBS games, but I resonate the strongest with the oldschool PC shooter era.

------

You know what, though? It's not AWFUL, but honestly I dropped as many many hours into those titles as the new ones with leveling and unlocks, because they were GOOD games with replay depth and a host of toys right out of the box... Curiosity is as powerful a motivator in instanced multiplayer games as making players grind for new toys.

 

[BBboy20]

By playing almost any game before this generation?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You mean like Quake, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 etc.

No, it would never work.

Poe's Law Alert!

(Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing)

In this case replace fundamentalism with sarcasm.

You seem to be doing just fine without me hand-holding you with a smiley.

 

[The White Hunter]

Battlefield 3 also falls flat on it's face doing that with the marksman class. High drop, low damage semi-automatic rifles, when really all I want is that SV98 and a bipod.

OT: Yeah, it'd work fine, thats the best kind of multiplayer, means you can jump straight in and experiment with ALL THE TOYS.

IMO the worst part is the vehicle unlocks.
First time playing in a tank? Don't worry, we'll set you up against an enemy with rapid reload, ablative plating and homing shells whilst you have just the basic smoothbore, just so its even. And no deploying smoke to avoid homing missiles, you've got to unlock that.
First time in a Jet? Don't worry, that guy over there has homing missiles, flares and a RADAR, you just have your machine gun, just so its fair. Nope, don't expect to be able to deploy flares to stop his missiles, you've got to unlock that.
Its the same with all land and air vehicles with unlocks, which really sucks. Unless you've been playing them for a fair while, you are at a major disadvantage when fighting against someone who has, regardless of their skill.
And don't even get me started on the bastards that would somehow fit 3 stealths on their jet so even after 30 seconds your homing missile wouldn't lock onto them -.-
Stupidest system I've ever heard of if you want people to start playing your game.

I agree with everything you said about the vehicles. I came to it straight from Bad Company 2, which did have some balancing issues (the starting weapons were utter shit for every class but the sniper and even that needed magnum ammo to ease off the drop a bit), but at least if you hopped in the UAV or a Tank or a Helicopter you could blow something up usually.

I suffered jets long enough to get lock-on rockets but the problem is then you can't do jack shit against ground targets. I also hated the flare system and lock-on stuff, I'd always just seem to die within a minute of someone deciding to point a rocket at me but whenever I'd try the flares reloaded much faster than any rocket I could carry.

Helicopters are worthless in BF3 as well, if they're on a map without an AA tank or Jets then they dominate completely because 4 people with flares and stealth spamming away happily, but an AA tank or jet just rips them out of the sky.

BF3 was a terribly unbalanced and poorly thought out game for me, handed far too little to new players and favuored those with thousands of hours to pump in far too much. Not to mention everything was clunky to use and the controls were weird at best, shit at worst (fucking helicopters), I've said it before but the whole game feels like they started making Bad Company 3 then decided to make Battlefield 3 halfway through, give it ugly realistic graphics and then make it try to play like COD to bring in the mass markets.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Yea, fighting games. (actually imaging fightings games with a level up system...)

The thing is, People like to be rewarded or feel progress so I'm all for unlockable stuff, but I think its better to have more aesthetic things as opposed to making advanced players OP, given that there experience will already make them better than newbies.

 

[Terramax]

I actually find it very off-putting that I have to grind away and level up to become good at a game. I'd rather it be skill based, than you very much.

 

[IGetNoSlack]

I mean people bring up TF2 and UT a lot but you have to admit that these games did get rather dull after sometime of playing the same thing.

hahahhahahahah Were we playing the same games? TF2 and UT didn't get boring because they were FUN. In addition, there was always someone better than you. Reason enough, considering the specified games, to keep playing. And you do realize UT came out before MW? I mean, using a game that came out before the "level up" mechanic became popular pretty much invalidates your point.

Also, multiplayer modes with level up are Skinner box mechanisms, not games.

Thus, your argument is invalid.

I'm pretty sure Team Fortress 2 doesn't have multiplayer, and it's thriving!

My friend TF2 is a multiplayer only game, just putting it out there.

I believe it's called sarcasm. Even without explicit indication, you can tell.

 

[Yokillernick]

I'm pretty sure Team Fortress 2 doesn't have multiplayer, and it's thriving!

My friend TF2 is a multiplayer only game, just putting it out there.

I believe it's called sarcasm. Even without explicit indication, you can tell.

I believe you are a foll who wasn't read the other comments/

I'm pretty sure Team Fortress 2 doesn't have multiplayer, and it's thriving!

My friend TF2 is a multiplayer only game, just putting it out there.

Bollocks!

I meant TF2 doesn't have a levelling system. Oops.

As you can see he admitted he made a mistake.

Now maybe you can have fun grinding the same two games over and over but that doesn't mean others will get the same satisfaction. So yes we were playing the same games and you should stop trying to sound so smug since it will annoy people.

 

[The_Echo]

This is completely the wrong thread for me to be in, as I don't play multiplayer games (assuming we're talking exclusively online multiplayer). But uh, why is there a leveling system? What does leveling up accomplish?

To answer the question, though: of course it'd work. You just have to make sure the engine is built around a multiplayer that won't need leveling. Like... CoD has levels, right? I'm assuming that if you used its multiplayer, but took the leveling out, and didn't change anything else, it'd be all fucked up.

 

[Robeltu]

"Would it work?" Shouldn't even be the question here because games don't use leveling up in their multiplayer and they work fine, I find games with no leveling more fun in most cases. Some games have multiplayer with no permanent player progression such as Civ 5 and Portal 2. I'm not generalizing here but a lot of shoehorned multiplayers are level up based and are normally not very good.

 

[Xdeser2]

.........It worked for DECADES ಠ_ಠ