[feedback] Does character level have a point?

So, after having finished the campaign and run multiple quests at various levels, I find myself wondering if character level has a point, other than being super annoying when you're trying to do quests. Right now I have quite a few characters: A wizard of each race, two human warriors, two dwarf warriors, and three human priests. Three of them are level 18 or 20 or something (the ones I finished the campaign with) and the rest are all level one as they've only played pvp. This annoys me, because some of the quests want me to have all warriors or all priests, or all elves, and I'd love to give them a go... but I really don't want to slog a whole party through all the campaign levels to that point to try one quest. So I probably won't. I never felt like the leveling system had any point at all, even going through the first time, as basically I just gained levels to be the recommended levels for the next adventure as I went through the campaign naturally. I think you ought to just do away with character experience and level, and just scale characters to whatever the recommended level for the dungeon is. You've somewhat mitigated this by having a level ten tavern, but level ten characters are so BLASTED expensive. You could sell an epic treasure and get... one half leveled up elf.

 

That's true, but each campaign has a recommended level anyway... so you'd just scale characters to that level when they enter the instance. Just like they're scaled up when entering pvp, or down when entering a lower level instance. I don't think we need each character to carry a 'level he really is' with him.

 

For me, it's limiting both to quests and to replay in general. I like to try out new things, but I might not want to try out the same new thing for 40 battles I've already played. I don't understand why leveling encourages replay unless you view the leveling of a character as a reward in and of itself, which doesn't seem like much of a reward to me. In any case, I'd be less irked by the current system if I could just buy level 20 characters... maybe an inn you open up after completion of the campaign? Pengw1n can still go buy level 1 characters and go through the campaign again, and I can buy level 20 elves to hit the all elf quest without having to level up 2 new elves. Along with this though I still think leveled characters are too expensive, but even if 20s were 200 gold I'd still probably be more likely to buy them than to level them. This of course leads to character stable expansion, as I bought some level 1 characters of various types for pvp (where they will be scaled anyway) but I'd then have level 20s of the same race and class just because I want to do some quests.

 

Everything you say applies to every game that involves levelling characters - be it D&D, WoW, NWN, Card Hunter, XCom ... etc. The list goes on. The purpose of the levelling mechanic is to tell the story of the characters as they grow from fresh faced adventurers into heroes. It also allows some narrative progression to the adventure - they start out meeting goblins (controlled by some nefarious force) - and in the end they are powerful enough to confront that 'boss' directly.

For anyone who enjoys the RPG aspect of such games - mechanics like this are essential (they even had to add progression into games like Battlefield, albeit unlocks and titles, not 'levels' - because it appeals to so many people).

If you scale characters to dungeons then people will mostly do the highest level dungeons - straight to the boss / dragon whatever, for the best loot - and then they'd complain that there isnt enough variety for them.

Personally I would be very happy for there to be a system that allows people to buy max level characters once they have completed the campaign - but I fear there would be people who would feel it is somehow 'wrong'. I'd be with Pengwin levelling up the little guys though

My comments are not intended to be a criticism of your position by the way - there are always people who find the progression element boring and repetitive in all the above games. I can only suggest 2 options - live with it, or seek out games where it isnt used.

Gray

 

That's not really it. I've played every other game you listed and enjoyed the leveling mechanics found there. It's just that I don't think they fit here or add anything meaningful, and I do feel like they add a really annoying aspect to a deckbuilding game I enjoy. I really don't feel any real sense of progression from getting new talent points. To me, this game really isn't an rpg. Despite the trappings, it's basically a deckbuilding game. I've leveled up multiple parties in XCom and enjoyed replaying the game, but with cardhunter I don't make meaningful choices as I level characters, so any level 20 of x race and y profession is absolutely interchangeable with any other 'character'.

 

So your concern isnt levelling so much as the lack of customisation options and choices gained when levelling? If I understand correctly then I get what you mean as I personally love customisation options in games allowing different builds and thus different characters to emerge. However that is, I believe, a very concious design decision on the part of the game designers here - the desire being that it is choice of equipment and cards that differentiates characters with the minimum being done seperately to the cards.

To me though it is very much an RPG and a deck building game, I dont see those as in any way incompatible. So I use the deckbuild to express the RPG element rather than some other set of rules. In order to make my characters feel different I have selected build themes for them - so they play differently, but I appreciate that is a self imposed mechanic and I could just swap the cards round and change their feel. However I see that positively - instead of having to make a choice that binds my character into a pattern where that choice is forced on me by the developer's rules I make choices forced on me by my own rules, and I can change my rules any time I like (no need to spend anything to get a respec! )

Gray

 

My concern is that the leveling mechanic just doesn't really add anything to the game. I like advancement mechanics, but almost all meaningful advancement in cardhunter comes from loot. As far as levels go, you won't be playing level x unless you're at the level recommended for it. If you're above the level, the game will scale you down, and there are already mechanics for playing below it if you want a challenge through the quest system. If the whole leveling system were removed, I'm pretty sure I (and most people) wouldn't even notice except that I wouldn't have to play the low level adventures all the way through after I had beaten them once with new characters if I didn't want to. I think this particular mechanic brought from rpgs is limiting in cardhunter, and adds very little mechanically for people to enjoy.

 

Agree to some extent with Drew. Where I differ is that I think levelling is important for the first run through of the campaign, it's familiar and welcoming mechanic for that purpose. Once the campaign is done, a nice reward would be for the quests to be level independent - the point would be to test your skills, rather than your patience for completing the campaign several times over.

I made a note of the "problem" quests - these ones will take an unreasonable amount of gold or time before you can have a fair shot at them, for only a rare chest:

All Elf wizards - Riddle/Secret of the Gnome Lords
All dwarf priests - Citrine Demon Portal
All human warriors - Viscous Tombs

 

I think the unlocking of mechanics etc. is important the first time through as well. It's nice and familiar and acts as a sort of tutorial. I think, however, that your characters could simply all be displayed as the level of the highest campaign level you've unlocked, rather than each character carrying his own level. This way you'd still know what you could equip, and experience a familiar level curve as you progress through the campaign, but once you were finished, all characters on your account would show as 20. I've been thinking about replay value, and I think that being able to reasonably separate your items into boxes is much more important for replay value than being able to 're-level' as most of the progress in this game comes from acquiring better stuff. I've posted about that in the item management discussion topic.

 

Levels are handled oddly.

- Playing a much lower adventure suddenly reduces your characters level. (this confuses me to no end)
- Switching between multiplayer and campaing mode where suddenly everyone is lvl 20 or not.

But, I think the level mechanics are meant to encourage replay of the main campaign with different parties/characters. I understand what you're saying about about acquiring items being the primary driver of progress, but for a lot of players I think there is real value to replaying the campaign missions with a different party. This helps people develop skills and tactics that can be applied to multiplayer. While some players will be perfectly comfortable jumping right into multiplayer, others will need a slower approach to building their confidence and experience.

 

I understand what you are saying about the leveling mechanic, but I do think there is more to it. Namely, the a priori foundations of RPGs, and games in general. Character levels in this, and many other games, are simply a metric to state the level of resources available to the player. Certainly there are often (but not always) interesting choices made at the time of a level increase which is missing here.

If, however, all of your characters were leveless, or each the highest level of your unlocked campaign, then entering a lower level adventure restricts items on their level -- something that items have not been known to have previously. As it stands, and is generally understood, items have level requirements, characters have levels. It has been ingrained in gamers that a lower level character, understandably, can't use a higher powered item. While originally an arbitrary form of gating content and combating character 'twinking', it's an understood mental model of gaming.

While it feels like a poor (and perhaps slightly misguided) argument, messing with gaming conventions can really turn people off, even unconsciously. Items being disallowed into an adventure based on their level is outside of the norm and may be more confusing that what the system already is.

The confused question of "My level 20 wizard can go on this adventure, but can't take his level 15 items with him?" is at least addressed by the reduction of the character level.

Personally, I'd love to see choices added to level progression. Perhaps various selections balancing health increase values, which item slot to open up, and power tokens/bubbles/whatever we are calling them.

 

I think you're mistaken about the way item levels work? I'm not entirely sure, but I've never paid attention to item levels when equipping items, only talent points, which are restricted back to the level they were at when you were the recommended level when you enter a lower level instance.

 

Hrm, right you are. The Approval Denied screen doesn't show the talent points at all, but that appears to be all that is restricted. So then, along with character level, item level seems to be insignificant.

 

I suspect that item level is connected to how the devs assign powers / abilities / cards to a given item. i.e. a level 2 item can have 2 points of powers (or 3 points if it also has a -1 disadvantage) whereas a level 3 item can have 3 points of powers etc. (I am of course making the numbers up for example purposes). The base numbers are then modified by item rarity. I came to this assumption by comparing similar items of different levels. Monsters can drop items of their approximate level - so as you defeat higher level monsters you receive better quality (more powerful) loot.

So item level would be useful in ensuring the appropriately powered loot drops at the correct levels - but overall not very meaningful for us to see (other than providing a simple insight that a level 6 common sword is likely slightly better than a level 4 common sword).

It believe that item level has no bearing on the level the character needs in order to equip it.

Gray

 

Without going in and adding to much meaningful text to this conversation. I personally love the leveling system and wouldn't want it any other way.

 

Sure, that's what the talent points are for (restrict the use of items based on power level) but the level listed on the item is meaningless to the us, the players. Drew suggested that player levels were as well since they don't offer us any choice while leveling up. Every LvL 15 [race] [class] is the same as every other. Any level character can enter a lvl 20 adventure, and can also enter a level 1 adventure. So the question stands, why have character levels at all?

Mechanically, I agree. I intended my response to suggest that character level factors into other things like item levels, adventure levels, as well as the feel and flavor that many are accustomed to. My misconceptions on item level requirements just helped to highlight exactly what Drew is suggesting, not only for characters, but also for items. They are meaningful to the developers/code, but not to the players. Designing for best advance information for the player, since the level of an adventure when compared to that of a character gives only vague indications of how well suited they are, adventures shouldn't have levels but instead should list the number, and types of talent points that each character can carry into the adventure. Doing so would instantly let the player know how well equipped the characters can be without trying to understand the (rather unintuitive) level system.

All HCI design principles aside, I like the levels and feel they are a cornerstone of the old school RPG theme the game is based upon. Sometimes theme, feel and tradition trump good design.