What if We Leveled Backwards?!

[MDSnowman]

I'm in agreement with the people who say that the game model would work better for more action oriented games.

I'd also add I'd still work some kind of talent system in there. While the characters start with a suit case full of spells and abilities they need to pick out the ones that work best for them and pare them down as they progress in the game. At the same time they should be able to take talents representing them becoming more familiar with those few abilities they've commited to.

Perhaps instead of that make the talent system class-less leading to interesting character concepts like stealthy priests, or warriors who have learned a single mage spell for utility.

In the end you'd have a legion of newbies with more muscle than brains and a host of wily verterans each with a handcrafted character perfectly tuned to their play style.

All that being said it'd be a ***** to balance, and if it wasn't implemented perfectly the game would be a frustrating pile of garbage.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I can't remember the name of the game, but this concept HAS been done before.

You started out as a Deity with full 'Wave your hand and bathe a village in flames' power at the beginning, and slowly became weaker and weaker until you were just a normal human (Due to humans starting to question the God's existence, so without their prayers, you lost power). Then lived happily ever after with your new human family or whatever. (Or executed. Same difference.) It was an old game, so my memory of it is rather fuzzy.

Anyway...a very small example of that would be Strago from Final Fantasy...IV, I think? Anyway, the more you leveled him up, the lower his stats got. (Well, everything but Wisdom and Intelligence lowered. Those two either stayed the same or went up.) It was used in context of the game as Strago 'aging', but the gameplay purpose was because Strago was a crutch character who let you annihilate everything that came against you until you got stronger (And he got weaker) until he was about the same strength as the rest of your party members.

 

[MasterChief892039]

There would be the problem of a learning curve. If you give someone 250 abilities right from the start, they're not going to have enough time to use them all and figure out which ones are the most and least important before you start taking them away, which could lead to issues later since I assume you're not allowed to get abilities back or swap them out for others.

Also, for a game critic that always harping on games for gameplay that's too same-y, I'm surprised Yahtzee proposed a game plan that would essentially reduce a player to a single button pressing monkey. Losing abilities to make you less powerful is interesting in concept, but flawed. There would certainly be a need to prioritize your powers and form a strategy for which ones work best together, but in the end you're still just limiting a players gameplay options to just a couple repetitious buttons.

Then there's the problem of just being able to make a new character every time you want a stronger one. I'm sure gating would help that a bit, but I bet more people would start over from the beginning once they had leveled down half way than would actually make it to the final/lowest level.

I think Yahtzee was probably smoking something at his barbeque;
Oh man. Dude, what if like, we levelled backwards in videogames?
No dude, what if we level backwards in life.
Oh man dude, that's deep.

 

[Caligulove]

I think a mechanic like that would lend itself perfectly to a game spanning over a long period of time, with the main character growing older and older- showing the prices and the scars of sacrificing so much, being a hero and all.

Looking back on it, adding this to the Fable games would actually add more persuasive reasons to care about The Hero and other characters, possibly culminating in the The Hero dying of old age or some other sacrifice. Instead of being able to free-roam after completing the story, instead able to wander the world as a Ghost or something- change the perspective of how the world is presented to you and how you can interact with it.

Adds more to the idea of a Legend behind your Hero. People would swear that the 'spirit' of this great hero still looks over the people long after he either died or disappeared- no one really knows what happened to him... ooooooohhhhh I would get a kick out of that, changing from minstrels shouting your exploits to people telling hushed tales of a Guardian Spirit, watching over them.

 

[veloper]

I came to the same conclusion but starting from a realism point of view: fighting for real doesn't make you better at fighting, but rather the sustained injuries, the overuse and the trauma would gradually make you worse physically and mentally.

From a gameplay pov it doesn't really matter how characters level, up, down or sideways, just aslong as the challenge is hard but fair and there is enough variety to keep the player interested.

The good part of leveling down would be forcing the player to new areas and to avoid unnecesary fights, while trying to make the most credits as efficiently as possible. It's anti-grind.
So it wouldn't really work in a comercial MMO, but it should work for a campaign game. Should also be easy to keep the game challenging from start to end this way.

 

[lord.jeff]

I like the idea although I think it's a little limited to where it can be applied but I think that leveling sideways would be better. A strategy RPG where you are forced to lose characters as you play but the ones you have lift are higher levels and more capable.

 

[faspxina]

The Prince of Persia trilogy had moments where it felt like the hero degrades while he advances in his quest.

(e.g.: in Sands of Time, the Prince keeps losing parts of his armor and clothes until he's left with just a pair of pants and a belt and also loses his companion at the later sections;

Warrior Within didn't have this so much, but it did had a later level where you are forced to consume magical sand from time to time or you'll die, making for a sort of challenge;

The Two Thrones, had a bit of the previous two, with the Prince loosing his fancy armor early in the game and getting addicted to magical sand)

This also reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus, which has a main character who gets more and more f* up throughout the game.

Although, from a gameplay standpoint, your character never lost any abilities in any of these games, I can see how it strengthened the narrative.

 

[CommanderKirov]

Frozen Throne. Idea of degenerating levels was used there. Also i think there was some indie rpg that experimented with the idea of decreasing levels. If someone remebers the name please remind it to me.

 

[Thedarkestofsouls]

I notice a lot of people sighting 'games that already do this' by refering to where you level up, but the bosses still get tougher. That's not 'already doing' what Yatzhee's come up with.

He (from my understanding) is suggesting the enemies don't progress, you do... but down, instead of up. If you go up, but the enemies go up more, then there is always some point in 'grinding' to get to that boss's level anyway, if you take a final fantasy example. Sure, if you play it normal, then the last couple of bosses are going be hell. Even if you get the max level and find all the legendary weapons, they could still be a pain in the ass... but that's not the point, because that's just the game inflating the challenge to make it seem more dangerous. How many games that 'already do this' are just as hard in the last area as it is to now go back through the first few areas you breezed through at 'full power?'

Which is why an Open World would work better then a single storyline, because there's no need to inflate the difficulty. Heck, you could even unlock skills/keys that won't help in a fight, but get quest stuff in places you already cleared, requiring you to go back through the 'easy' areas and finding them not so easy anymore.

 

[Therumancer]

Well that is one of the problems with your point of view on games, you don't really get "RPGs" and why they are a differant genere. They come from paper and pencil RPGs where the point is to progress a character and have it become stronger, and while challenges are still presented, if everything is a constant nailbiting showdown, it really doesn't show much in the way of the progression of your character. What's more it can be satisfying to slap down the big bad like a little girl despite his smug attitude, given what he has done for the rest of the game. Doing that well (if the final boss is relatively easy) is a big part of strong writing when it comes to RPGs.

I get what your saying, and for a single player game I could see the formula your talking about working, but I don't think it would work for an MMO. I also very much doubt it would replace the traditional RPG progression mechanics.

I'll also say that in games like WoW, it is true that the bad guys in the world become trivial, especially towards the endgame, however that's the point where you wind up raiding and the like, or if your a dedicated solo player, you make another character. Bosses in raids and instance are generally not trivial when you meet them in the course of progression, taking dozens or even hundreds of attempts to finally beat in many cases. This is to say nothing of increasingly gimmicked "trash packs" which can require very counter-intuitive tactics and fairly skilled play to defeat, especially now.

Even if you liked them at one point, I think RPGs just aren't your genere to the point of not really "getting" it anymore when you start suggesting things that run contrary to the basic idea.

That said, a game where you play some kind of a fallen god who finally throws down the bad guy with the very last of their diminishing power (like the back story of a lot of RPGs) would be kind of interesting, and could really get into the nature of heroism, self sacrifice, and similar things. I just don't think it's something that would be popular as an oft-repeted playstyle.

 

[FactorySlave]

I will give you props for trying, but I don't think that system would work. Thinking outside of the box, while appreciated, doesn't mean thinking backwards.

At the beginning of the game, many examples give you all your powers to test and play, but its a tease, a carrot on a stick to keep you going, since you know you eventually will get as strong as that, or even more. To revert that mechanism would discourage people to keep playing, since they know they will progress from Superman to Jimmy Olsen.

The idea of a hero's journey is that the main character grows during its adventure, learns more skills and became more confident. The player is not overwhelmed with 1.000 spells and its variations, instead he/she plays with them and decide which ones he likes or likes to try better as he uses them. Your idea might work on some stage (maybe depower the hero before his battle with the final boss, or the Bioshock level where you loose all your upgrades one by one), but as an entire game concept its hard to sell the idea of "you are like Luke Skywalker... you start as a jedi and end up as a farmer"

Besides, I hope its not meant to handle the difficulty automatically. For starters, that is far a temptation for developers to keep using the same enemies... after all, a rat would be a little nuance at the beginning, but a veritable challenge near the end. For you to create bigger challenges, you don't need to think of harder obstacles, just throw the same obstacle you throw the last 10 hours and let the stats system work itself out.

Finally, the problem is that it restricts the options a player have to play the game. If you like to play as a stealthy, melee character, it might work on easier enemies (early in the game), but it won't work as you progress through the game. That means you can either experiment with the game, under the idea that you might have to replay large sections of the game if you get stuck in a place of the trimmed tree where you can't face the challenges ahead, or forget about playing the character you want, instead use a guide to see which character class is more useful and less likely to get stucked. If you put all the options on the player and a timer to lose them, you give them a sense of urgency and force them to play with guides, because they won't know how "less powerful" a weapon will became and how much that will that affect them.

I think you aren't really looking at it the right way, but instead of writing an essay I'll try to keep it fairly simple:

One: Time makes fools of us all, even Luke Skywalker as a master jedi will age and become less skilled as his prime passes, sure he will always be fairly skilled, but never as much as before and others will have the potential to be more skilled.
However Skywalker will have the skill of "experience," someone whose survived 1000 duels will most likely beat someone whose only survived through 100, even if the one whose beaten only 100 is more technically skilled.

Two: Character Growth isn't just reflected in skill. Character growth is also reflected in their outlook, their personality, their intelligence, understanding etc. It's qutie possible for this type of story to present a strong character arc with a compelling narrative.

I think you're being a bit too close minded, and attempting to push your idea of what a hero is or has to be into a neat little box. This type of idea doesn't even need to be restricted to say a "medieval" setting. It's conceivable to imagine it in a FPS, where as time passes, you get hurt more, you get a little slower, you ability to aim suffers, maybe you can't use as many big guns, or certain kinds of guns (i.e. guns with the kind of recoil that can break your shoulder if they aren't handled properly by a suitiably strong person), the game doesn't become unplayable, nor does it mean enemies can't still have an upward difficulty curve. You just start having to approach problems differently, and show your increased skill in aiming despite setbacks and so on.

 

[Otto42]

Combine ideas. Make it more like real life. Specifically, aging.

Start off weak and useless. As you progress, you gain abilities. As you progress further, your abilities get stronger. But as you progress even further after that, your abilities weaken or become less effective. Thus the strongest guy is actually the one in the middle of the pack. To make this interesting, as your abilities lose effectiveness, you also gain some level of immunity from those abilities used by others, to simulate the "I once could do that" type of thing.

Now, combine this idea with items. Starting off you've got nothing. Later, you gain things. Later on, you trade them for more powerful things. Eventually, you've got a whole lot of powerful things.

So the end result is that the start game has the player weak, with a learning and gaining curve just like your average game. This provides the player with both tutorial mode and the ability to learn new things, to keep them interested.

In mid game, the player is powerful, but may not have the best stuff to work with. So he's got to rely on his skills and wits to pass the challenges facing him.

Finally, in the end-game, the player is once again weak, but with a ton of powerful items and a lot of knowledge of abilities and skills. He has still rely on his wits, less on his learned abilities, but he's got the gear to back it up, and those abilities aren't as effective against him, due to his prior knowledge of them.

That would be a hell of a lot of design though.

 

[Shirokurou]

There was an obscure Russian PC game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathologic where there's a plague going around and you're sick, so your skills gradually decrease near the end.

So, been there, done that, Croshaw, my boy.

 

[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.