What if We Leveled Backwards?!

[Sixcess]

It's an interesting idea, though I find in most games I play that you only become more powerful in theory, because the power level of your enemies increases at least in line with your own power. A classic example would be WoW, where a Northrend bear is more deadly than any of the mages, liches, warlords and minor godlings you fought on the way there.

That's something I found slightly irritating in Prototype. Sure, by the end of the game you can sweep through the lowly rank and file like they're not there (though when can you not in that game) but the majority of opponents thrown at you towards the end are either annoyingly tough to handle (Super Soldiers, who are less vulnerable to your attacks than tanks and require lots of fiddly QTEs to beat them) or just plain immune to your best powers... so you end up ignoring your blades, your claws, your whip in favour of throwing heavy stuff at the final boss, which is a bit anticlimactic.

 

[SecretAlienMan]

I think that this "leveling down" concept could have been well implemented in Batman:Arkham Asylum. Since Batman's outfit gets all ripped up and torn by the final boss battle why couldn't his gadgets also get damaged? You'd still get more gadgets as the game progressed but the quality of some (or all of them) would break down after certain events (like how Batman's costume breaks down after certain cut-scenes.)The grappling hook could jam up from time to time to prevent hasty escapes to perched gargoyles while being shot at. Batman's batarang pouch could have been smashed in causing Batman to take more time to pull out a batarang. If implemented well this "leveling down" system could add new abilities (to give the player an incentive for continuing) but cause said abilities to backfire from time to time due to damage from a boss or event.

 

[irani_che]

Bioshock 1 did something lke this as the splicers became electricity proof, forcing you to upgrade or change strategy.
If anyone here remembers counterstrike, they had an interesting mechanic for the guns, maybe not intended.
the easier it was to use a gun, the weaker it was. The big AWP sniper rifle was a pig to use, but if you practiced and got good at it you were unstopppable.

really, you would want to trade the abilities the character has to ones tht are harder to use, or reqire more strategy but are more powerful. that way old guys have a rewrad for their service and a new chalenge while noobs have something to look up to

 

[Spacegrass]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work in an RPG, because half the fun in an RPG is growing more powerful and making an effective character build. There would at least need to be trade-offs; maybe your character could lose combat effectiveness in general while gaining a few powerful, limited-use abilities.

This seems like it would be more useful in an FPS. Maybe your character could have radiation poisoning, and gradually loses maximum health capacity even as he gains more powerful weapons. Instead of giving rewards for killstreaks, an online shooter could give penalties, thereby preventing one expert player from dominating a game full of beginners.

As for RPGs, it seems like the decrease in difficulty is a result of creating an effective build. Since most players will be able to create an effective character, especially with the abundance of guides for just this purpose, it seems RPGs may be better served by just increasing the difficulty.

 

[CrystalShadow]

What a silly idea. I see where you're coming from, but people like to build characters up, not see them get worse and worse. Even from a lore point of view it'd be hard in most games to justify losing abilities over time.

You could lose armour, though. That would retain the skills you have, make the game harder and you could even gain more skills to compensate for loss of said armour. And it'd make sense, too, because armour does break down over time.

Well, depending on the setting, old age works too. Sort of.

Getting older you might gain skill, but you can lose physical ability.

Past a certain point, the losses in reflexes, strength, speed, mental agility and so on counteract whatever gain in skill you might have had.

Also, in the real world, serious injuries often don't heal properly, again permanently making you weaker than you were.

From a realistic perspective (and thus one of lore), the progression is improvement in skill over time, and initially (childhood to early middle age) and increase in raw physical and mental ability as well.

But after that, while skill would still improve, your raw ability would deteriorate, so the 'old master' might know how to fight more effectively than the 'young rookie', but the young rookie would be a lot stronger.
These kind of things cancel out to an extent, but after a while it would definitely lead to declining ability.

 

[ckam]

It's an interesting idea, but there would need to be a very good development team to pull it off well or at all.

 

[deth2munkies]

I'm in an MMO mood, so I'll talk about this in relation to MMOs:

The problem with a game like that is with reducing the amount of abilities or stats that a person has, you reduce the possible amount of mechanics you could use. For instance, if you had a later boss that had a constant AoE damage spell, but all of your AoE heals had been taken away by the time you got there, it'd be pretty damn impossible to keep people alive. Add to that the fact there's little replay value in using a few core skills with no perks or anything available because they've all been stricken.

I'd like the idea you put forth: of a god stripped of his powers gradually by a curse or constant fatigue, or whatever. But I'd say that in the endgame of such a game, there should be a long, epic quest line that takes forever to do, but allows you to finally regain your powers. That way the leveling journey will focus you on the loss of your abilities and such, but there can actually be end-game content. It's also a good excuse for game designers to put stories and branching paths in the game by making the lvl 1 epic questline branch off depending on how you want yourself to evolve back into a decent character.

I think it's intriguing and something I'd give a shot.

 

[FogBird]

Well, I don't really agree on this topic. I think that games won't be so fun when I don't have the getting stronger part. A good story could hold the game, but when I imagine myself playing a game like this, I feel it is just not fun, and having fun is my main goal when playing.
Advancing in the game will just make me more miserable, removing elements all the time, even if the designers add new elements in the story and gameplay and such.
But hey, maybe I'm just special. That's just what I think.

 

[Alphakirby]

Wow, after reading through the article, I have to say...This just might be crazy enough to work!

 

[Tarkand]

The main problem with the concept is that as you lose abilities, the game will become more and more 'same-y' and boring.

Unless the game developers grow brains and try to put more variety into the game than just "what flavours of attack you can use".

And how do you propose you do that? The core concept of Yahtzee's game is that as you level, you get weaker and loose abilities. No matter how deep the game is, you are still looking at a game that is getting shallower as it progress... it may not be totally shallow by the end game, but it will be shallower. There's no getting around it. Which also means not as fun to many people.

The fact is simple - pretty much every game, be it a fps, rpg, action game, etc - starts with you having less abilities and possibilities and gaining more.

The games gets easier either because:
A - The difficulty doesn't scale properly, so your new abilities make it too easy.
B - You've figured out some new combo that is much more powerful, so even if the game does scale, you're still destroying everything regardless.
C - A mix of both.

In both case the problem has more to do with poor design (poor level scaling or not playtesting all the combo properly) - this is just a very round about way to fix the problem... and it opens up a can of worm.

 

[Dice Warwick]

interesting idea, but may not be my cup of tea, but a good basic idea to work from.

 

[Tzfanya]

Yahtzee, you say a lot of things, most of which I nod appreciatively at or smirk knowingly along with. This, however, is a stroke of absolute bloody genius.

Couple of other scenarios that would work as vessels for the concept: someone with some wasting disease that slowly atrophies them over the course of the game, or alternately this mirrors something I'd been thinking of off the back of District 9: a game where you start off as a gun-toting soldier, but slowly transform into a monster, losing the ability to use your guns but gaining less direct skills that, utilised with more thought, lend you the ability to accomplish your tasks.

 

[Stammer]

lol even if it didn't make perfect sense the way you brought it up Yahtzee, this is something my friend and I have been talking about for a while.

One thing you forgot to mention is how this could affect shooters (which is what my friend and I were discussing about primarily). Especially since shooter games are mostly about "skill" rather than your combat gear, in games like Call of Duty when you progress through multiplayer chances are you're becoming exponentially better than people just starting out. If a shooter game has been live for even as much as a week, it's pretty much pointless to get into it these days because everyone who already owns the game is going to already be 100x better than you, sniping you as you spawn with the combined awesomeness of their advanced twitch reflexes and their new railgun that you can only unlock once you've reached Lv.50 War Veteran level.

If shooters started you out with all of those awesome weapons and upgrades and then slowly took them away, it would give newcomers a chance to keep up with the players who have become naturally skilled at the game.

Spoiler

Oh yeah, and I was one of those dunces that once said "First!" on one of your videos... but that was when I was brand-new to the forums and I literally thought that it was the "cool thing to do". Plus, when I did it I actually did comment on the video itself (yes, I did watch it before saying "First"). I was banned for a week and now I understand why. But what I still fail to understand is why I was banned for having a post with content while everyone else on the first two pages who only commented on my "First" comment weren't banned. Oh well, it's a mistake I'll never make again. lol

 

[Baneling Aspect]

Extra Punctuation: What if We Leveled Backwards?!

Yahtzee's crazy idea for RPGs that might actually work.

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Wow, that's certainly clever. I don't know if I would want to play an MMO made out of the concept, but I would definitely give a singleplayer and/or co-op RPG like this a whirl. Sounds like it could be a really engaging experience.

 

[similar.squirrel]

I can't see this working in MMORPGs, seeing as so many players level different classes/races just to try out their abilities. That takes time, and brings more money in for the publisher.

It's an excellent idea for single-player games, if implemented correctly. A nicer idea might be a direct correlation between your abilities and your health. You can either use a dizzying array of interesting powers at the increased risk of dying, or power through with a relatively bland skill-set.

 

[retterkl]

Although not really the same as what Yahtzee was aiming at, I had some thought of something like this.

Basically we all know it's really easy to reach max level in an MMO simply by grinding and you can die as many times as you like without having much consequence (there's some like lost loot or buffs) however there's no real fear of death.

I was thinking that to spice up Endgame a little you would lose Exp every time you die. This would be set on a multiplier so that mabye first time you die you lose 500 exp, then when you die a second time you lose 3x as much, so 1500 exp, then 4500 exp and so on. This would be set on a cooldown timer of mabye an hour or so. This would leave people to actually put some thought into their game, mabye join up as a team and keep healthy and grinding wouldn't be so grindy with a fear of death.

This would only start when you reach something like level 60 out of a game where you can reach level 80, and the maximum you can drop down to is level 60 (you would lose skills in the same arc that you develop them). The exp that gets taken away would be based on a % of how much that level takes (say 5%, so for a level that takes 50000 Exp you would start by losing 2500 exp on your first death, 7500 exp on your next, 22500... 67500... after that you're screwing your levels over by continuing).

The % would then increase as you reach closer to maximum level so it's even more difficult (i.e. you lose 50% by level 79 so 2 deaths and you're just over level 78!!) and you have greater fear of death.



This would hope to get rid of a bunch of those top level dudes who spend way too much time grinding, and it would give the game a new flavour for those bored at endgame.



So basically in common with Yahtzee's proposal, it's kind of when you get to a high level you still have the potential to lose it and go backwards, but you're not going to lose it all, and you also have to gain it first. It would be nice too because it gives you a chance to go back and remodel your character arc in a different way.

 

[ModReap]

Huh this is actually pretty good.

I immediately thought of a game where the main character is inflicted with a curse, from something right before an opposing force aims to take over. The longer you fight the weaker you become, and if you fight to long then it's game over.

 

[browncoat619]

I think Yahtzee's finally gone mad with power