Almost every Mmorpg today, free to play or pay to play, has the same system of advancement, and that’s the leveling system. There are so many things wrong with the leveling system that I’m surprised it’s still the standard today. Games like Eve Online and Ultima Online both have unique systems based on skill gain rather than simply “leveling up” to get stronger. Players instead focus on training specific skills and become more proficient at what they character does, rather than just *Ding* I’m stronger now.
The leveling system unbalances dueling and PvP. If you’re a level 30 warrior, theres no way in hell you’re going to beat a level 45 player, even if you have superior equipment, as you probably won’t even hit them, as the level difference tilts the outcome of the fight on the higher level player almost all of the time. Under the standard Mmorpg leveling system, there is no motivation for lower level players to participate in PvP as they will always get destroyed by higher level players. In World of Warcraft, higher level players are free to slaughter lower level players anywhere in the game, which can get frustrating. There is nothing wrong with stronger players killing weaker players, but when that weaker play has absolutely no possible way to defend himself it can ruin the game.
The leveling system promotes grinding. Players will always want to reach the highest possible level and will grind for hundreds of hours to do so, and grinding isn’t fun. Players have the mentality that once they become stronger and reach maximum level they’ll start to have more fun. It’s like working for hundreds of hours with the goal of having fun in the future. Games like MapleStory and Perfect World are notorious for this kind of game play, where players are disillusioned to believe that once they are higher level, they’ll have more fun. The leveling system also allows developers to introduce cheap new additions to their games like “increased level cap” or “faster experience days” rather than actual new content.
Two games that totally reinvented player advancement in MMORPGs are Eve Online and Ultima Online. Both games have absolutely no leveling. In order to progress in Eve Online, players have to select a skill in order to train and training that particular skill will take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. This sort of progression system allows for players to be able to fully customize and control their character growth, as they’re selecting what to become proficient with, rather than the game controlling their growth. Since players simply can’t be good at everything in Eve Online, they usually choose to specialize in certain skills, but the fact that there are thousands of ways to build your character’s skills makes Eve Online a unique gaming experience. There Is an obvious drawback to this system though, as players who started playing when the game was first released simply have more skills trained than people starting the game today.
Players in Ultima Online advanced by actually using the skills they wanted to become proficient in. Players that wanted to become swordsmen would have to physically equip a sword and start killing monsters with a sword weapon equipped. Players wouldn’t advance based on how many monsters they killed, but rather how many times used their sword in combat. The game had over 30 different skills, all of which could be used by anyone in the game. The game did have a skill cap of “700” which meant that players could only have a total of 700 skill points and Each skill could be improved up to a maximum of 100. This system allowed players to be 100% in control of their characters development. If you wanted to have 50 of skill X and 70 of skill y and 25 of skill z you had the freedom to do so. There were almost infinite different ways to grow your character. Another positive aspect about Ultima Online’s skill system was that players could at any time decide to forget a particular skill and work on another one, which allowed players to reshape their characters from a warrior to a blacksmith at anytime. This sort of character development led to the birth of hybrid classes like “Tank Mage” where players would advance a mixture of both warrior skills and magician skills.
Unfortunately, developers today have all almost abandoned the idea of non level based progression. Since the wild success of World of Warcraft, developers will most likely try and copy the success that World of Warcraft. Developers simply don’t want to risk trying to reinvent a system that has been working for years.
I’d have to agree. There appear to be some games in the works, but few interesting ones exist at the moment that challenge the class based system that has taken a strangle hold on the industry.
Hell, I even thought that Guild Wars was interesting simply because you could multi-class. Its a sad strange place we’re in.
There’s still hope!!
There are also FREE non leveling based mmorpg, like the browser game Estiah [it's a totally different mmorpg, since it has no equipment at all...]
Runescape is knid of like that. Except there are levels but you can be whatever type of character you wanna be. I became a Thief mage I used daggers and bows most of time and magic. i became lvl 115 and kicked everyones ass in pvp so i got bored.