to level or not to level

ok. let's get it out in the open.

i hate levelling up.

to me, it's the stupidest way to design a game.

i hate being a newbie. the worst time for me in a game is the beginning. nothing makes me cry more than when someone says to me, "let's start the game again from scratch and go as some kind of team or something?"

no way.

go to hell, monkeyboy.

i don't want to be godlike, don't get me wrong. dying doesn't bother me. it annoys me, but it doesn't bother me. i just want to feel comfortable.

i want to feel i can walk down into a dungeon and hold my own - whatever that is.

i don't like feeling like a newbie. i've played enough games to warrant not having to feel that way. i hate that some ass can walk up to me, decked out to the nines and his character all maxed out and can sneer down at me because i'm still wearing a generic outfit. i mean, offline i don't shop at target, so i don't see why i should online, if you know what i mean.

it's again, what i liked about oblivion. i got my assassin outfit not much into the game, and never needed to change it.

the worst thing about wow, is that every level up you pretty much have to change your entire kit. and that's expensive. ridiculously so. so you end up falling behind, and then get beat up more, which becomes more expensive on the repair, and the heals, and you end up getting annoyed...

and levelling up used to be great. you'd be tacking on points to new skills and feeling all uber and all. now i just feel like, yeah, whatever. i don't care anymore. too many games do that.

which is, again, why i think oblivion was the uber game. it just did it all in the background and instead of you choosing what went up, stuff went up according to what you actually used. so, you use a dagger as i did, and the relevent skills went up. you ran about sneaking all the time, and your stealthy skills went up. you picked locks, and your skills went up. that's brilliant.

i understand people want to customise. so do i. i am so totally dedicated to the fashions of my characters (it IS important if you enjoy the roleplay aspect), that i will sacrifice the ac for anything that makes my character suitable to its style of play. i hate and despise people who have the gall to say they're playing a roleplay game but seem more dedicated on levelling up, acquiring an uberweapon and ignoring the fact that their outfit looks crap because they prefer having uber ac.

i mean, show some pride.

levelling up becomes not only a pain in the butt, but it's also detrimental to the whole roleplay aspect of the game. it discourages roleplaying, in my opinion.

what happens is, you want to roleplay. you want to go on a dungeon crawl. like in ddo. see, i'm a rogue. i want to slide down the corridors, looking for those secret doors and traps and wishing they had a pick pocket option. i want to spend an hour doing a dungeon that seems to take some people twenty minutes.

because i want to explore. find any secret stuff.

but, i find the secret stuff is getting less in these games. unless they're gimmick cow or chicken levels.

i want more secret doors and locked treasure chests. i want some challenges. the worst thing is, as a rogue, getting to the end of a nice corridor, having slipped past everyone and everything, to be told now you have to kill not just the boss but twenty of his just-spawned minions, too. what?

can't i just swipe his funky thing and get the same xp?

no.

you can't.

because these quests are shit.

and everyone wants the xp, so they ignore the fact you want to explore, or take your time like in some kind of fantasy novel. no. they just want to "hurry up so we can finish this because it'll give me the xp i need to level up. i don't need more than 100 points, so i don't want to waste time hitting all the barrels. besides, mummy's calling so i have to get off the computer."

well.

fuck you, fucker fucky! assist the happy time! as noodleboy would have it.

levelling up has taken the priority away from the game and into the realms of self-improvement.

take it away.

one hit kills, i tell you. give back one or two-hit kills. especially for sneaky assassins and axe-wielding barbarians. maybe swords should have three. magic users - some should definitely be one. but more than that is boring. and xp should be class specific.

as a rogue, i should get points by sneaking past stuff, not killing it. or opening stuff.

as a mage, i should get points for casting, not killing. for learning. for solving.

as a warrior - for killing. and maiming, too.

ddo has tried. they give you xp for finishing the level, regardless of the how. you just get bonuses for other things. i'd have liked to have seen a rogue bonus - bonus for killing no one other than the required guy.

or a bonus for stealth kills alone and no mishaps that way...

brilliant.

all this levelling up shit. it's killing my party. i find i've become a solo player. i wasn't one to begin with. i was a team player. i loved fps and rpg parties. i really did. but i'm sick of them now.

mind you, i think part of it has to do with the loose form of english people seem to use in these games.

i had some idiot on ddo the other day. nothing new. he just messaged "u want to do shsje?"

i'm guessing shsje (or whatever it was) was an acronym for something. i told him i was new, and didn't know what shsje was.

so he messaged back, "u done skahesh yet, then? it's after that."

very helpful fucker.

i ignore assholes like that.

by the way. show me some respect. the word is "you're", not "ur". and "you", not "u".

please. just speak english to me. it only takes a few extra seconds. although, i guess to these people a few extra seconds is a few extra xp they can't afford to lose...