What if We Leveled Backwards?!

[2-part Epoxy]

I had an idea like that a while ago. It was a daydream about a game in which you play a homeless beggar.

The point of the game would be to collect money by panhandling around a city. Your character would start as a down-on-your-luck but otherwise healthy adult. However, the more time you spend on the streets, the more your health deteriorates. And the more crippled you become, the more money you can get from panhandling!

You would be able to fight with citizens or fellow vagrants for supplies, tools, or rattier-looking clothes. But the real purpose of combat would be to sustain serious injury. By surviving many severe beatings, you would eventually progress from a mere bum to a blind, toothless, hobbling and pathetic paragon! But such handicaps would increase the real danger: collapsing of malnutrition and/or getting nabbed by the police. If they catch you they will take you to the hospital. There, doctors will not only heal you, they will take your hard-earned begging money!



Well... that's one (incredibly stupid and probably insulting) way to integrate the mechanic with the story. But seriously, I think Yahtzee has an interesting idea. As mentioned before, some games give you a real shock when they suddenly deprive you of a previously-important item, weapon or ability. A game in which the player knew that such loss was inevitable would be... maybe frustrating, but maybe really engaging (especially if she had to choose what to sacrifice).

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I must say I quite agree with these ideas getting implemented in RPG games.

The difficulty curve in most RPG games decays to a mere null towards the end of the game,where you don't even need to pop potions to keep yourself alive,because you are overpowered with all your gear,spells and abilities.

Will be nice to see some producers try this "tactic" in future RPG's.

Guess time will tell...

 

[SeiichiSin]

I seriously have a working story already in mind. I have an idea on how it would work. Though it wouldn't "end" with you being weak, that would be part one of the game. Though part two would technically not be nearly as long as part 1 as it wouldn't be the main idea. I dunno if you would give me a second look, but I am a game designer of sorts myself, and I am actually sorta interested in the idea. If you wanna get in contact about it, hit me up. If not, the idea is yours, I'm not going to touch it without the mastermind backing me up.

 

[mireko]

BOY HOWDY this sounds like a an amazing idea.

I LOVE PLAYING CHARACTERS WITH AIDS.

 

[qeinar]

would never work for an mmo tbh. as for a singleplayer or co-op rpg it could be in a comedic based game, but i don't really see the idea working. as for the spells you don't use in wow on your mage, remember that there are circustancial spells that will be usefull for situations, and also they have specs where you can choose ice, rendering your fire spells weaker than your ice spells. so it's not like wow do not let you choose what spells you use. and also there would be no point in removing the spells you don't use since this would not really make you weaker.

the thing about removing spells is that having 2-3 spells does not really take much skill to use, it limits your choices rendering the game easier. what they need to learn is making boss fights harder, not making the player bader. : p

 

[Nevrus02]

I go to school in Burlington, VT. for Game Design. A team two years ago actually created a game along these lines called "The Eve" that begins with the final boss fight, and then the player must slowly sacrifice their abilities in order to get closer to their love. The levels were themed on the pitfalls of relationships- Pride, Jealousy, Lust, and I believe Deceit. The player chooses an ability- double jump, shield, attacking, and crawling- to sacrifice at the end of each level. They can also end the game early by sacrificing their love so that their love can be free of the curse you're working so hard to undo.

The concept was brilliant, as each sacrificed ability cut off many easier paths in each level. I feel like it's proof of concept for this kind of play.

Stay bastardly, Yahtzee!

 

[RA92]

As a concept for a Single Player game, this is kinda interesting though, imo, kinda gimmicky.

Playing Fallout 3, I'll disagree with the 'gimmicky' statement.

Let me explicate. When I started off from the lower levels, every decision I made had an appreciable effect on the outcome of my battles, NPC interactions, etc. Because resources were so scarce, I had to decide whether taking on a certain group of raiders was commendable; and even if they could be defeated, I had to consider whether it was worth the effort considering scarcity, for example whether I should use the long range rifle since I was short on 5.56mm ammo while the raiders were mostly armed with 10mm. Getting shot would cost me expensive Stimpacks (didn't have a place to sleep yet) and degrade my armor, which would cost me further resources. Even in battles I had to hunt out vantage points to attack from, not to mention stealth.

The game had me thinking in terms of logistics, both in resource management and combat.

But later, with the reward mechanism at work (Tesla Armor, Laser Rifle, Plasma Rifle, around 1000 Microfusion Cells harvested from decapitated Enclave soldiers), the gameplay degraded for me. Every problem encountered simply met my chain-gun and a river of lead. The tension was no longer there, and neither was the challenge.

So it does have the possibility to create an interesting gameplay mechanism, not to mention the aesthetic appeal of the narrative. Also, I would like to point at zjspeed's comment.

The reverse-leveling mechanic would be easier to implement as a linear single player or cooperative multiplayer game.

Explain and understand it simply as scarcity. Ammunition and other supplies become more and more rare and valuable as the story progresses.

I think Left 4 Dead does this on a small scale.


Your team starts a level with four healthy survivors loaded up with weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies.

During the sprint to the next safe house, you expend grenades, bullets, pills, first aid packs, health (mobility), and team members.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine a game using a similar mechanic over longer time scales.

But yeah, it wouldn't work in an MMORPG. MMO devs are too busy bleeding from the eyes from all the cocaine they're inhaling, courtesy to Skinner's Box.

 

[qeinar]

As a concept for a Single Player game, this is kinda interesting though, imo, kinda gimmicky.

Playing Fallout 3, I'll disagree with the 'gimmicky' statement.

Let me explicate. When I started off from the lower levels, every decision I made had an appreciable effect on the outcome of my battles, NPC interactions, etc. Because resources were so scarce, I had to decide whether taking on a certain group of raiders was commendable; and even if they could be defeated, I had to consider whether it was worth the effort considering scarcity, for example whether I should use the long range rifle since I was short on 5.56mm ammo while the raiders were mostly armed with 10mm. Getting shot would cost me expensive Stimpacks (didn't have a place to sleep yet) and degrade my armor, which would cost me further resources. Even in battles I had to hunt out vantage points to attack from, not to mention stealth.

The game had me thinking in terms of logistics, both in resource management and combat.

But later, with the reward mechanism at work (Tesla Armor, Laser Rifle, Plasma Rifle, around 1000 Microfusion Cells harvested from decapitated Enclave soldiers), the gameplay degraded for me. Every problem encountered simply met my chain-gun and a river of lead. The tension was no longer there, and neither was the challenge.

So it does have the possibility to create an interesting gameplay mechanism, not to mention the aesthetic appeal of the narrative. Also, I would like to point at zjspeed's comment.

The reverse-leveling mechanic would be easier to implement as a linear single player or cooperative multiplayer game.

Explain and understand it simply as scarcity. Ammunition and other supplies become more and more rare and valuable as the story progresses.

I think Left 4 Dead does this on a small scale.


Your team starts a level with four healthy survivors loaded up with weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies.

During the sprint to the next safe house, you expend grenades, bullets, pills, first aid packs, health (mobility), and team members.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine a game using a similar mechanic over longer time scales.

But yeah, it wouldn't work in an MMORPG. MMO devs are too busy bleeding from the eyes from all the cocaine they're inhaling, courtesy to Skinner's Box.

well the problem is they failed to make the endgame harder in fallout, they should make mobs that needed good tactics to kill and would not drop fast from guns. actually the game could just make the mobs of the game stronger as time goes by..

 

[Julien Brightside]

What if a character that is aging have to find potions or magical artifacts that counteracts the aging to a certain dregree, but perhaps with a price of morality, and even pieces of your soul?


A game about Spartacus could manage this I guess. You start with a certain amount of people beneath you as a general, but the more battles you take part in, the more wounded and tired they get.

 

[subtlefuge]

For some reason I couldn't stop thinking about "God Hand" during this.

I think for this concept to work, there would have to be a highly skilled mechanic, it couldn't just be tacked on anything. If you as a player could not get significantly better at the game, then making it harder would make it unplayable.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Reminds me of breath of fire 5, the more times you use dragon mode the closer you get to dieing or going berserk or something.

I think to make it work if you fight at full power you start to lose things, fighting at half power you are able o get by but the pacing of the game narrative would be all kinds of screwed up unless skills are based on equipment thus...oooooo that could work.... !!!

 

[linkages555]

i thought of that same idea in a videogame...but not a rpg game...i would love if a designer can take an idea like that and play with it.... Journey its a game that would benefit from that mechanic, it would make the character journey more strong as the player would want to know what is in the mountain that is so important that the he would let go of the skills to progress to the game.

 

[JimJamJahar]

I'm not sure that this would take off and become a very popular concept. However, I think a similar idea could work: as you play the game, your party starts to thin out from people leaving or dying. That way, an individual could still improve, but overall your team is getting worse. This would work give a difficulty curve and keep the players playing to improve their characters

 

[RA92]

well the problem is they failed to make the endgame harder in fallout, they should make mobs that needed good tactics to kill and would not drop fast from guns. actually the game could just make the mobs of the game stronger as time goes by..

Fallout is in no way solitary in that respect. Nearly all RPGs - ranging from Pokemon to Earthbound (minus the boss, Gigas), has this effect to some extent. Grind on ahead, and the rest is cake. Reward mechanism wouldn't work otherwise. Yahtzee's proposal removes that issue.

 

[Kopikatsu]

After some thought, this would be fairly easy to implement in an action game. In real life, a master swordsman could easily overwhelm an opponent with incredible strength, but no skill. Same for martial artists, really. Instead of Yahtzee's idea of starting off with all the skills and abilities you'll ever get, you start with insanely high stats but very few, if any skills. As you go along your merry way, you meet people who are willing to teach you various things, figuring them out for yourself, or watching someone else preform them. As you get older, your skill increases but your physical ability decreases.

In essence, you would be trading in strength for skill. Nearing your 'strongest', you would no longer be able to brute force anything that gets in your way, but could maneuver your way around obstacles with a combination of wit and skill.

 

[Odoylerules360]

This would work great with a Warhammer: Storm of Chaos adaptation.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

What if we compromised between the two systems?

As the game progresses you earn more abilities, but at the very beginning of the game you can choose one weapon to take with you, and that weapon gradually grows weaker through the game.

So the curve in difficulty still increases, but it still adds game play features too.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I would play it.