Topic

Why does leveling feel so BAD? (A list of all positive and negative things associated with levels)

Good-
Higher max energy (good for bulk crafting of some items)
Higher donation cap
Access to certain level based items (Snowcones among others)
Level based coins give increased amounts

Bad
Icon Tithe amount goes up (more currants)
Energy tick and Mood ticks get more and more severe (it takes more food or more drinks to keep you going)
Teleportation Energy costs go up (it is percentage based)

Please point out any things I missed.

I see almost no incentive in leveling. Optimal play is going to have me run around getting no xp intentionally? Do I want to have low moods at all times? I think there is a slight problem with development if I feel that way.

Do others feel the same way?

Posted 13 months ago by Sajin Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • I guess people like leveling because they enjoy the happy music and fanfare? I guess I have too much of an analytical nature.

    No one has really provided a good argument to why levels should hurt you besides for the monetized teleport token one. That is actually a solid point. Although, I can really teleport all I need with just energy costs.

    I still do not see the reason for leveling to not be beneficial.
    Posted 13 months ago by Sajin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Wein, thanks for your response. I noted that you agree with me that leveling up is somewhat punishing. However with systems such as:

    items like the snowcones in the game (cost currants, rewards xp)
    quests (rewards multiple things including xp)
    Donations (costs you items, reward favor and....xp)
    Most tasks that you do grant xp
    Punishment for dying? A low mood bar which lowers xp gain

    Thus the system is designed around people......wanting xp and thus leveling up. However, xp is not wanted from an analytical standpoint. That is where the flaw comes in.

    I play the game still and I have not stopped leveling like some people have come into this thread stating (mostly because I have a hope that the system will be fixed). I simply wanted to point out how BAD it feels to level when all the systems point to people should care about levels. If I simply did not want to level I would not have really brought up this discussion. I just feel like a change is needed in this area.

    Thus the game system are broken. XP (and thus Mood as well) are both broken mechanics. If you still feel they are not, Wein, would you care to explain why?
    Posted 13 months ago by Sajin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The problem with this whole thread is some missing words in the title.

    "Why does leveling feel so BAD to me."  Then it can remain a thread where the OP stubbornly maintains their position throughout.  I am sorry to have to say it, but hat's just how it seems the discussion is going.

    A lot of interesting points are being made, though.
    Posted 13 months ago by Baedelmot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • just play and enjoy the game and if u level, u level.  i dun bother with the maths of energy cost, currants cost, optimal donation blah blah... that's so stressful!
    Posted 13 months ago by lengzzz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's not specifically an issue of how the mechanics affect the people in this thread (or how many of them there are), the design issue is whether or not behavior which is explicitly encouraged and desired is being thwarted by the engine.  If so, it should go on the To Do list.
    Posted 13 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I kind of dread bumping this thread, but I went ahead and posted my idea of a solution to the ideas forum & thought you may be interested: http://www.glitch.com/forum/ideas/11924/
    Posted 13 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh oh you know what else I'd love?  Is if the levels attainable weren't capped.  Then I could strive to be like, level 100000 and eventually someday GET THERE..  that would be AWESOME.  ^__^
    Posted 13 months ago by ♪♥~ Auren ~♥♪ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the resone they have a cap is to see how they could make it better. just think of this as a model, you have it in a smaller proportion so you can see how it works, that is known a BETA in the world of gaming. A lot of people tend to forget that Glitch is still in beta.
    I belive that the exp on/off toggle would be very nice if you don't like exp... that way if you like lvling, the toggler is on and gets cobwebs of dissuse on it, if you don't like it then you turn it off... if you then sundely get to the perfect lvl, you turn it off, if then the perfect lvl get higher you trun it on, when you get to the lvl turn it off. Easy fix

    (on=get exp, the toggle collects it for you:), off=no exp, the toggle thows the exp in a garbage:) )
    Posted 13 months ago by Askarema Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Although the icon tithes go up so do the blessings granted by the icons.
    Posted 13 months ago by Melting Sky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Scaling costs for special skills with level is typical of many RPGs. Designers want to be able to limit the use of some skills while improving the efficiency of regular skills as players level. In Glitch, most of the skills are on a fast track where they get better as you level (mining, gathering, crafting, etc.). Teleport is considered a special skill, so Glitch bounds it so that its use is proportional to your overall max energy. You can never teleport more than a certain number of times on a full tank of gas, regardless of what your level is and how big your tank is.

    Most complex RPGs don't use the same resource pool to feed skills on different tracks like this. Usually they'll do things like limit the number of uses you have of a special skill per day and leave it at that. For whatever reason (probably to reduce the appearance of complexity), Glitch uses energy for both special and regular skills.

    At the start of a game day, the negative consequences of this shared resource pool are entirely perceptual. It seems like it costs a lot to teleport, but it actually doesn't cost any more than it has before in terms of a percentage of your maximum energy. The mood/energy ticks are also a similar proportion in terms of a percent.

    The place where the mechanic might need a little love is when a player runs out of energy and wants to use food to extend their play for the day. As a player levels, offsetting ticks and teleports requires more food. More food means more grinding. At first this isn't so much of a problem because grinding and food efficiency grows as players learn skills that give them better returns on harvests and more efficient meals. Eventually players run out of skills to learn and top out in terms of food creation efficiency. This is why it seems like there's a ramp off around level 30 - that's when most players finish learning those skills. At that point players have to pay more attention to food grinding and cooking, assuming they want to play past their initial day's worth of energy.

    IMO, assuming that TS wants leveling to be generally a good thing, they might want to experiment with lowering the growth curves for tick and teleport costs. Higher tick/teleport costs encourage grinding and shorter/efficient play sessions while they discourage exploration and being social. They've already made some good tweaks in this direction - meditation rewards didn't use to scale with level, and the fact they do now helps this out.

    Icons are a different creature entirely and I don't think they have a problem. The tithe cost is directly tied to the reward size. The reward gets bigger as you level, and therefore the cost goes up. This can feel like more of a grind if you want to keep many icons happy at higher levels, but you're not actually obliged to tithe to them. It's probably better to think of them as a portable device that allows you to transform currants into energy, xp, and mood when you want to do so. Note that emblems might be a good alternative if you don't want to grind - they give you everything for free forever.
    Posted 13 months ago by mirth Subscriber! | Permalink
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