Good level progression has rhytm, it has pace.
I am jonesing for it right now, ERA. The ding. The swoosh. Picking a new skill. Opening up new possibilities.
It can't be too grindy, no, grinding is cheating, it is overloading you with dopamines for the first few levels and then starving your brain.
Level reward have to be meaningful, it needs to open up gameplay, it can't just make you stronger, it also needs to change you, to guide you either into specialization or diversification.
Good level progression allows you, at the same time, to build upon what is already there while changing what you can do.
A sharpshooter in XCOM 2 doesn't just become a better shaprshooter with each level. It becomes a sharpshooter that can work around its own limitations. A high level sharpshooter can make multiple actions in a turn and accumulate free shots so its lack of mobility matters less. It becomes the unit that ends low health enemies injuried by the other teammates, it gains new function.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, would be near-perfect, if only level progression weren't so broken and wrong all the time. But if only the rhytm was there, if only the pace weren't a nightmare, the skill tree allows for so much
But what do you think? Gimme some games, old or new, that level up just right.
I am jonesing for it right now, ERA. The ding. The swoosh. Picking a new skill. Opening up new possibilities.
It can't be too grindy, no, grinding is cheating, it is overloading you with dopamines for the first few levels and then starving your brain.
Level reward have to be meaningful, it needs to open up gameplay, it can't just make you stronger, it also needs to change you, to guide you either into specialization or diversification.
Good level progression allows you, at the same time, to build upon what is already there while changing what you can do.
A sharpshooter in XCOM 2 doesn't just become a better shaprshooter with each level. It becomes a sharpshooter that can work around its own limitations. A high level sharpshooter can make multiple actions in a turn and accumulate free shots so its lack of mobility matters less. It becomes the unit that ends low health enemies injuried by the other teammates, it gains new function.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, would be near-perfect, if only level progression weren't so broken and wrong all the time. But if only the rhytm was there, if only the pace weren't a nightmare, the skill tree allows for so much
But what do you think? Gimme some games, old or new, that level up just right.