What if We Leveled Backwards?!

[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.

 

[zenoaugustus]

I like this idea, but I find it more applicable to FPSs in a sense that it could feel more natural. While I do like the declining powers and loss of abilities as Yahtzee says, I think this isn't what most players would want. Unless the game is completely centered around advancing through the loss of powers (which Yahtzee does say) I think it might seem a tad odd. I think in a FPS setting it could be much more rewarding. You start the game off with the largest, craziest weapons the game has to offer, but due to being sent further through wherever you are, you lose more weapons and by the time you combat the final boss you have but a spear, or pistol or something equally weak in FPS terminology. Just a thought, anyways...

 

[yoyo13rom]

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!

Could I buy their product? I mean I'm not interested in the code, I just wanna play this thing. It sound really interesting!

 

[Briggins]

I could see this working in an mmo, but it would have to be vastly different then the current grindfests out there. Rather then your average raid/loot/repeat mmo, it would have to concentrate more on the rpg portion, say every player has to work together to stop some big evil person/event/etc or face a total server wipe.

The basic premise for this is that characters would age over time, becoming weaker as their infirmities took hold. If their character lives long enough, they'd eventually have to decide whether to sacrifice themselves to further stop whatever evil is happening or take the coward's route to stave off death for a while longer.

They'd have an option to go out in a blaze of glory having their character's name forever engraved on a memorial for them. Think Judge Dread style where the judges have to take the long walk at a certain point.

 

[teknoarcanist]

What if you started the game off with several hundred potions, grenades, etc . . .

. . . and you don't get more throughout? No one tells you this; you're just led to conclude it after the first few hours of play. Every time you use a potion, that's one less that you'll have forever. Every point of lost HP becomes a battle of attrition.

Conclusion: mitebkewl

As always though, it should probably be pointed out that cool ideas are a dime a dozen in game design -- it's implementation that matters.

 

[zjspeed]

LAST!

Ha!

 

[Giantpanda602]

Heres one reason nobody would actually enjoy this in practice:
Nobody wants to get used to using good skills and then have them taken away so all they can use are their bad skills. More people would want to simply not level and do stuff with their starting character.

 

[Kebabco]

I think we all do this. I'm pretty sure it's called aging.

Was thinking exactly the same thing

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

This is the best idea I've ever heard. That is all.

 

[Dusk17]

This sounds like an interesting idea. I wouldn't play a game like that but it sounds interesting. Also it sounds like punishing the player for progressing in the game and i dont think it would get past planning or whatever before someone asks "if i lose a level every mission then whats the point?" there has to be some kind of really good hook to keep the average gamers attention in a game like that or a way to compensate for the lost level or skill. Such a thing would make for good story but would present a challenge to incorporate as good gameplay.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

What new would it bring to the table? It's perfectly symmetric with the usual leveling method: you still spend the same amount of time in both weak and strong states. So what's the point? There are better ways to make gameplay more challenging and dramatic: look at Devil May Cry 3, new abilities only complemented your own skills, they weren't doing all the work for you. That's what a good implementation of RPG elements is about: sharp balance and equilibrium between player's and his/her character's skills. That's the core reason why I absolutely despise the traditional point&click RPGs.

There are reasons why some mechanics had been never to rarely used in games. Take Shadow of the Colossus for example. You might argue that the whole point of the game was "to bring a sense of desolation to the player". But all I saw was a world full of nothing and that comes as a really sloppy attempt at selling a poorly designed game as art.

Off-topic: yes, I hated that game so much. I hated its empty gameplay. I hated the fact that the supposed mighty colossi were nothing more than gigantic pushovers. I hated its diluted (yes, I said "diluted") and moronic storyline with ending so ridiculous it would have made the "star child" cry. And most of all I hated the fact that my pagan first impression of the game (I love pagan mythologies, especially the early ones: they're just shrouded in so much magic and mystery I can't help myself) had been crushed by the said absurd ending and replaced by your everyday demonic bullshit, lucifa please.

There, I said it. You may start with the crucification now, it was worth it.

 

[The_Splatterer]

Not a bad idea! perhaps it would benifit from the Call of Duty 'Prestige' system where the hardened (or weakened) players can then go back to the top of it all and chose a different set of powers to lose all over...