"Level UP"/RPG System Discussion

I'm in favor of more granular progression systems, rather than the generic grind exp for levels, but many others are both comfortable with it and committed to it. It does work as a scaling difficulty system, in that if you get stuck, you can just go do something else, or grind in an easier area for a bit, and be more likely to succeed when you come back later. It gives the illusion of having gotten better at the game, without requiring the player to actually get any better -- their character does instead.

Even if you accept that as being ok, the problem, as you've pointed out, is that it only works one way: the game gets easier as you play it, whether you want it to or not. There's no such mechanism to make it harder, probably because there's so little demand for it. There are games that have implemented that kind of increasing difficulty, where the more successful you are, the harder things become, until it reaches a kind of equilibrium -- and they're not very popular, though they tend to develop devoted fans.

That said, I've never been all that fond of the modes in past Igavanias that disable the leveling system, because I don't feel that the base combat has enough depth to be remain interesting when you're forced to drag it out, nipping at the enemies with the same weak attacks over and over, having to dodge the same attacks consistently over a drawn-out battle. I'd rather have a more complex system to develop skill in, rather than becoming a master of a very limited toolset requiring pixel-perfect movement.

Also, like you said, it would be nice to have something in-between 100% casual and 100% hardcore, but I'm not sure how it could be implemented without feeling clunky. Particularly when most people will probably mentally categorize themselves in one camp or the other, even if most of them would actually benefit from something with more granularity. Requiring the player to use an item or perform some sort of ritual to level up seems redundant and unnecessary if you don't understand why someone would want to avoid leveling up. Ideally it should be done in a way that's seamless to the player, that balances the difficulty without them having to be conscious of it.

Games are deliberate, artificial problems we create for ourselves, because we like solving interesting problems. The player is expected to apply every advantage they can in order to solve the problem, make things easier. It's counter-intuitive to give them the option to limit themselves just to make the game harder. Such options carry their intent best when there's a tradeoff (accept this limitation in exchange for greater rewards), or when the increased difficulty is clearly delineated, such as a "hard" mode, where there's not necessarily greater rewards, but it's a distinctly different challenge, a different problem to solve. Rather than artificially limiting yourself by ignoring an option that makes you more powerful, you're applying those same options to a more difficult version of the same challenge.

My memory is a little hazy but I remember Chrono Cross having something of a level cap that you could only increase as you beat bosses. What the OP is describing is kind of an inherent flaw of the game design. To allow people to grind so that they can beat the next boss/rooms, its possible to over-level and make things too easy. Let's say there are 10 bosses in the game. Before the first boss you can't go above level 10. You beat that boss and then get a shard the raises the level cap to 20. Continue for the rest of the game. That allows you some leeway to level up and grind, for those too unskilled to beat the boss at low levels, but it also means there is a cap on how much you can overlevel. If you can't beat a non-optional boss at the level cap, you just REALLY suck

We only have experience with the demo so it's hard to say what the final vision is.

I do think that more emphasis should be put on equipment and abilities and the matter. Level ups should help to alleviate the burden overall, to show your progress and as a system so that you can grind if you want to, but I don't think that wandering around should OP-ify you enough to wipe out a boss. It would make more sense to find secret equipment that is really powerful or the boss is weak to or something.

I'm ok with that as well, but I do want to have more difficulty options in between.

Yea, that's been my issue with the level 1 caps as well. Even though I already know the strategy and patterns of the enemies and bosses, however, because my characters are so weak, I have to perform the same thing like 20 times without making a single mistake, which gets tedious after a while. And most of the time, you'll probably just jump over enemies and ignore them because attacking them tends to be more dangerous due to you leaving yourself open for a short time after an attack.

I do agree that there should be some trade offs. Generally speaking, when the player gets this type of option, it's usually between getting an immediate boost and make your life slightly easier right away or wait longer and make the late game stages easier.

So maybe instead of Miriam gaining xp, make the seal gain "maturity" or something. Whenever Miriam kills an enemy, the seal becomes stronger. You can use the seal right away when you get it, but it only gives you stat boost equivalent to 1 level up, but if you get it to fully mature, you get boosts equivalent to 3 level ups. Since the seals are limited (at least on the harder difficulties), if you keep using them right away, you make yourself weaker overall in the long run. Anyways, just throwing random ideas out there

Thanks! I'll check out the threads in more detail. I would definitely like them to make some changes to the current RPG system. As it stands, you can pretty much ignore the entire mechanic after the first few stages. Once you start snowballing, you just don't stop... 

That sounds interesting, and yes, I think something like that would work better than the current system. If I remember correctly, didn't the Julius mode in Aria of Sorrow had something similar as well? In that mode, you can only "level up" Julius' parameters after he beats a boss and collect its orb. Killing normal enemies didn't give him any xp.