Guild Wars 2

Hopefully this is the right place for this.

Anyhow, one of the things that I never understood about games with increasing stats/levels is that each fictional world has it’s own set of rules and laws that cannot be broken. IE. elementalists cannot make undead minions.
And a lot of those rules are borrowed from real life so we can relate to them. So why is it that our characters just keep getting stronger? I can lift weights all day, but I can only get so strong, I can study all night, and only get so smart. Even the pinnacles of the human condition have limits, so why are our characters unlimited?

We aren’t. We level down in low level areas.

I completely forgot about that, well I feel silly

I loved it when i saw that. i know The Secret World tried to get around that with no levels but this is nice to. It never made sense that some wolves are like flys while others can kill three men depending on where you are.

I like to imagine that the planet itself ‘bleeds’ a form of mystical energy and that species have to be ‘attuned’ to it to tap into it fully. Your character starts as completely unattuned and, for some reason, has the ability to tune in at a faster rate than non characters. This means that you gain attunement/power at a rapid rate where they peak more quickly and at a lower state of tune.

You return to a lower level and the energy bleed from the ground is lower, so you lose energy potential.

May not be lore but hey, thats how I quantify it.

Well, the reason the classes can only use certain types of magic is due to the Bloodstones.

the example with the different kinds of magic was just to demonstrate that there are certain rules in tyria that can’t be broken, like the bloodstones separating the schools of magic

Levels are a completely arbitrary construct of rules. The true reason they exist is because in tabletop games it wasn’t really efficient to change your stats after every fight. It was easier to keep a tally of experience and give yourself a stat bump every X xp. The first computer RPGs borrowed this tried and tested tabletop system and no one ever asked questions about whether powerful computers “maybe” allow for a more interesting form of progression.

Levels as a game system are outdated by several decades. However removing them is a big risk which not many companies are willing to make. Instead they add levels but make them irrelevant. For example, in GW1 the level cap was just there as an aesthetic. In Diablo 2 your character should be complete around lvl 85 which could be reached in a day, anything beyond was only bragging. Fable had its own implementation which still encouraged grind. In GW2 the level curve is so flat it may as well have been completely scrapped. Other games try other things. The core issue is that no one dared to completely remove levels and XP as a combat system yet.

The Secret World still has XP but instead of character levels that xp goes towards skill and ability points.

marnick is correct in saying that levels are a convention deeply lodged in the RPG genre (whatever the medium). The short answer to the OP is that there is no lore reason, our characters’ level-ups are not supposed to reflect anything significantly changing them in lore. Dustfinger’s point about down-levelling is a good one though – it does help to avoid the sense that your character has somehow become inhumanly strong when you return to lowbie areas.

The fact of the matter is that when you try to remove or even de-emphasise levelling, a substantial number of players will whinge about the lack of progression and how they want to see measurable progress for their efforts. People are playing with the system, though (it’s been a long time since people just transplanted D&D rules into a computer). One of my pet peeves in MMOs is the trend toward quantifying everything, though – levels, gear scores, min-maxed stats.

Curuniel.4830:

One of my pet peeves in MMOs is the trend toward quantifying everything, though – levels, gear scores, min-maxed stats.

Some people do, some people don’t. In PVE I don’t give a rats puppy about my stats. Still have several yellows while my gear stats are completely arbitrary based on the random dungeons I do. I just can’t imagine people with a job and family to like threadmills.

My perspective goes with the people who are saying that levels are a mechanic that doesn’t really translate into the lore. Now, a level 80 character probably is more powerful than a level 2 character, but it’s more along the lines of the difference between a level 2 character sidekicked to 80 and a genuine level 80 character.

The good thing about Guild Wars 2 is that, although it still uses ‘levels’, they aren’t that important to the fight anymore. Dodging well and making good use of your skills matters a lot more.

In a sense, you could view this as the modern soldier. Some soldiers got better training and/or equipment (i.e. levels) than others. So if they for example would aim their gun, they’d be more likely to hit. However, making the decision when to shoot is much more important than the tiny difference in how well they can aim (not saying it’s not important of course).

To me, levels in guild wars are like that: training, gear and preparation that’ll give you a slight edge when performing your actions. But making the decision WHEN to do WHAT is where the real challenge comes in. Kinda like a boxer that can train all day to hit as hard as a truck, but he will still need to get past his opponent’s blocks strategically.

ThiBash.5634:

The good thing about Guild Wars 2 is that, although it still uses ‘levels’, they aren’t that important to the fight anymore. Dodging well and making good use of your skills matters a lot more.

In a sense, you could view this as the modern soldier. Some soldiers got better training and/or equipment (i.e. levels) than others. So if they for example would aim their gun, they’d be more likely to hit. However, making the decision when to shoot is much more important than the tiny difference in how well they can aim (not saying it’s not important of course).

To me, levels in guild wars are like that: training, gear and preparation that’ll give you a slight edge when performing your actions. But making the decision WHEN to do WHAT is where the real challenge comes in. Kinda like a boxer that can train all day to hit as hard as a truck, but he will still need to get past his opponent’s blocks strategically.

Yet a soldier who’s been in combat often enough doesn’t automagically get more gear, instead his EXPERIENCE is what makes him a better soldier. This doesn’t so much increase his stats but rather how to make better use of those stats. In GW2 terms this means an experienced player is better able to dodge and use the right skills on the right moment, yet experience points for some arbitrary reason still result in gear increases. A soldier working with game rules would take a flamethrower into a town and kill a million civilians in order to get his promotion.

I agree. My point was though that, compared to OTHER games, Guild Wars 2 has a relatively realistic levelling curve. One of the things that contributes is the fact that you get experience for more than just killing stuff.