What if We Leveled Backwards?!

[2xDouble]

It wouldn't be difficult to justify, lore-wise. Consider Shadow of the Colossus. Imagine if you started off with a bunch of superpowers and set off to kill the most powerful bosses in succession, but that black mist/affliction/whatever stuff took away one of your superpowers in addition to making you look emaciated. By the end, you'd be fighting the weakest boss, but with none or few of the abilities you relied on to take down the bigger baddies, making it your greatest challenge.

If the enemy strength slowly decreases (or stays the same) over time, but your strength decreases quickly, it keeps the player's power-to-challenge ratio continuously rising and ramping up, just like a regular level-up game. The power gets new players hooked, and the challenge keeps veterans around... It's a brilliant idea, Yahtzee.

 

[MiketheBassMan]

The problem with working backwards like this is that complexity is removed as you advance, creating a steadily simplifying experience. If you're using world of warcraft as an example, it would be very silly to have limited spells in the context of endgame raiding, where the most difficult and complicated challenges arise.

 

[LimeJester]

It's an interesting concept. I'd add one mechanic to keep the veterans, perma-death. You've levelled down so far that you reach a point where when you die, you're gone. I think that would add a dimension to keep veteran players around since it would actually be a huge achievement to keep such a weak character alive. Only issue I foresee with it would be griefing nooblets. What would stop a level 85 from massacring the entire veteran population who are on their last life?

 

[Jonluw]

I can certainly imagine a single player game where you get gradually weaker at least.
I think it could make for a really compelling story.

 

[TilMorrow]

I have played some games that take on that concept but then make you strong again at the end. However if you were weak at the end boss you'd probably have a fission mailed sequence during the final battle or possibly a boss you have to lose to battle. Which can get cheesy. Though I suppose it could work as an MMO if right at the end of a campaign style quest line you are suddenly gifted a large number of exp from side quests you have done as well as in reward for completeing the main quest line so that you are at a adequate level to keep playing after endgame features and possible start to level up instead of down.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I picture the scene from God of War 2, where Kratos has to put all of his godly powers into the sword, in order to progress. I could see the idea being that you have to sacrifice something of yourself in order to progress, maybe creating places of intrinsic resistance as you journey, trying to vanquish something or other from your land. Or, as you progress, you take in the corruption of the land, Shadow of the Colossus style, gradually and persistently becoming more and more afflicted. As your land gets saved, you degrade more and more.

The twist I want to see is that at the end, you fight something that has picked up some/most of your lost abilities, and you have to use what you have left to know the appropriate countermeasures and rebuttals to his attacks. Maybe bring it down to attacks/spells that counter each other, and you have to know more the signs of which attack is about to be done instead of how to use an entire palatte of attacks in a 5 second time span. I don't want the last fight to unlock all your abilities, however, I want to see them permanently stuck with the affliction, unable to regain more abilities, lest the corruption gain power again. When the final boss lays defeated, the main character should need help getting away, and should continue to need help. I don't want powerless, but certainly less powerful than others that could come along.

 

[GonzoGamer]

An interesting concept. One might call this the "Die Hard" approach as to invoke images of a battered and bloody Bruce Willis hobbling into a showdown with a smug, self-confident Alan Rickman.

This concept made me think of Die Hard too: you can show up to the climax as a shoeless, bleeding mess with two bullets.

While the backwards leveling is certainly original, I don't know if I would want to play that as much as Yhatzee's "Frank Zappa Supervillain" game from the Saints Row 2 review.

 

[rokkolpo]

Reminds me of The final boss in Okami.
I was scared shitless.

This is what God of War 2 could've pulled of, but didn't.

 

[Brainst0rm]

The problem with working backwards like this is that complexity is removed as you advance, creating a steadily simplifying experience. If you're using world of warcraft as an example, it would be very silly to have limited spells in the context of endgame raiding, where the most difficult and complicated challenges arise.

Ideally, as you are forced to specialize, you would also be forced to improvise and find more creative ways to utilize the skills you have. Most games are designed to reward experimentation - for example, Diablo! It's designed so that a player who is continually trying out new ways of using his skills can eventually find extremely powerful strategies and combinations.

Also, addressing the point several other people have made, it would not be any more narratively difficult than a traditional RPG. "But why doesn't the super-powered hero go after the bad guy right at first?"

"But why doesn't the super-powered villain go after the hero when he's still a flailing noob?"

Neither are impossible problems; they're about equal in the creativity required to overcome them. Both would be solved by one not knowing where the other is, for example - not a creative solution, but an easy one.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I like this Idea. If it's not made by the time I get to be a game programmer, I'll probably suggest it. It's an interesting concept, and could probably be totally awesome if done right.

 

[xXxTheBeastxXx]

It's an interesting idea, but I think you'd have one hell of a time actually getting people to play it. My knee-jerk reaction was "a game where I get weaker as I progress? No thank you." Granted, after I thought about it, the idea got more appealing. But the truth is that most people just go off their first reaction and use that as their basis for overall reaction. While some will take the time to think "hey, that might be cool," most will say "F%&# that."

I always thought a good idea might be progressive challenges. I know that in most tabletop rpg's, the hallmark of the concept is that challenges escalate based on the party's strength level, assuming the game master knows what he's doing. And in several, the escalation is actually exponential, where a level 20 opponent is not 20x as strong as a level 1, but rather somewhere around 50 to 75x as strong. Scaling opponent strengths (similar to oblivion, but actually thought out and comprehensive) would create more challenge, I think, and still give the sense of accomplishment via leveling.

But, then...you are talking about an MMO, in general, so my concept is automatically thrown out. They thrive on static challenges.

 

[burn e]

I say go for it!

It sounds hilariuos, crazy and clever. I would totally try it out.

 

[thegermanguy]

hm, I think it could work. for one game, and singleplayer.

one of the points of an online game is to test your gaming skills against real people. but doing this by comparing how weak you are (and not by how strong you are) seems kinda weird. I guess it would discourage many players to move on in the game. The only thing you have by the time you finish the game will be a weak character and the knowledge that you beat the game.

why not make it that way: you start the game with all skills available. And with every level you gain (or lose, if you want it this way), you can choose to erase one of the skills. By erasing one skill, the other skills and/or your stats get stronger! By the end of leveling up (or down), your character will be either a specialist in few disciplines who can easily be defeated because he is not prepared for every situation, or a relatively weak guy who has in exchange for being weak so many skills that he is prepared for almost everything.

Or...the game just automatically erases skills you don't use. Because if you don't practice learned things, you forget them and stuff.

 

[viperwarp]

I don't think this would work too well in a MMO (of any genre) very well, unless it was very carefully balanced, it would be too easy for greifers to just keep making new characters and keep on greifing.

Where I think this would shine is in story based RPG and strategy games.
I love the idea of having to give up abilities as you progress through the game or as a variant, when you get hurt, take damage, generally make mistakes then you lose abilities or strength. So you could play a perfect game and be as strong as you are at the start, this wouldn't work where the strong/weak poles are quite extreme.

The other way to apply this is in strategy games like Fire Emblem or (Warhammer 40k) Chaos Gate where when your team members die, they're dead, no going back. I can see this playing out where you start off with an army and as people die (as a part of the story) your army becomes a squad of close knit members that start having to perform guerrilla warfare to survive and achieve your goals.

 

[Helios Lives]

Is Yahtzee trolling again, or does he honestly think this is a good idea?

 

[House_Vet]

I've been turning this one over in my head for a while now - mostly as a way to make horror games get scarier as you go, rather than turning enemies into fodder. You could start off trampling all and sundry and get progressively sicker and more injured until even minor enemies are a massive threat.

EDIT: Games like Left 4 Dead actually manage this rather well, as you become more injured, slower, etc.

 

[A Username Not In Use]

It's brilliant, especally if you add a Don Quixote twist to the end where the world is well, the hero is physically and mentally recovers but is emotionally destoryed as a result of the quest.

 

[Wolfram23]

Would be cool to start at godlike status with superpowers but slowly lose those over the course of the game, and instead relying more and more on some amazing physical fighting skills. So, for example, at the start you can snap your fingers and engulf an army of foes in flames, but by the end of the game you gotta go kung fu on their asses which obviously would make it a LOT tougher.

 

[DaxStrife]

I can see both sides of the issue here, but the concept of the reverse-RPG-system probably would only work for one or two games as an experiment, not as a long-lived concept. In fact, I think it would work incredibly well in an RPG about the life of Merlin the wizard from the Arthurian legends. The concept of Merlin was that he lived his life backwards, his memories beginning as an old man; the last time his friends saw him he was like a stranger, but when they first met him he greeted them as old friends. In game form, a reverse-level-system would work perfectly for this concept.

 

[Nick Holmgren]

Sounds like a recipe for disaster for an MMO. The problem is that you would either have to start reversing the effect at end game or it would suck. I mean you down magmaw one week but due to losing your leg the next boss is too hard for you. When your raid lockout runs out, cause if it doesn't the content is going to get old faster then ever, you try to fight magmaw again. saddly, your lack of that leg means you lose. and if you do win you get to have, NOT ONE BUT TWO! missing legs. You see the problem

ALso, when you hit 60 it might seem like you get each and everyone of your spells but I have tried PTR realms, IE being given a top level toon of any class, and it is confusing as hell to skip earning each of those level. You learn you your class works a little more each level until you think you have it mastered at 85, only to learn you suck at it and have to learn some more in dungeons, then heroic dungeons, then finally you learn that raiding is HARD.