your suggestions sounds a lot like the skill based system prevalent in other single player elder scrolls games minus the level. Sorry, but you cant have an MMO without levels, players have to have some way for continued advancement in an MMO. Defiance tried that and it svcked because of it. In my opinion elder scrolls has moved passed skill based advancement within the series, even though i myself do support it in single player games.

That's nonsense. Skill based advancement is a perfectly acceptable system for sandbox games if done well. Just because one dev team svcks implementing a concept doesn't mean the concept svcks.

The other thing that has always bothered me about levels is ... an arrow to the head. It should kill a L50 or a L1...

Dropping levels, or even implimenting a system of health & vitality like d20 Star Wars would be more realistic than gaining uber health as you level such that a L50 is immune to crits or death from a L1 mob.

Right, its the implementation that's the problem

now you are talking about realism again. there needs to be a line with realism eventually. i mean yes an arrow to the head would kill anyone so would not eating, or sleeping, or being set on fire by a mage. then if we start asking for realistic deaths like this then imo the game needs to have perm death otherwise that would be even more unrealistic imo. 1 shot arrow to the head kills me but whats this? hit enter to come back to life? SOLD! then when we start to introduce these levels of realism the game becomes less fun for more people. notice the word most because there will be people here who say they want permadeath but the majority (by a long shot) would hate it

Correct.

Level-based systems can also svck if improperly implemented.

I yeild on a reasonable "realism" line.

However, the more important reason to get away from levels & inflated health etc is to be able to have an open world and less character power disparity.

Good point, the power disparity in most level-based systems has gotten completely out of hand.

Power disparity?

Do you mean between low level and high levels? Aren't those needed? I level one should not be allowed to kill a max level..otherwise fudge the level system and go with something else

This can happen in skill based systems too.

I personally always prefer systems whereby a low level character can defeat a high level character if they are a better player and know the game systems better than the high level character's player. Player skill >character skill. Also gear can be a factor. Character skills and gear should give players an edge but not be the deciding factor IMO, otherwise you just get the good ole WoW faceroll rotation macro spambot combat.

What I hate is in games like WoW you can't even do any damage to a player who is much higher level than you. I prefer a system whereby, purely based on numbers, 5 or so noob characters can take on a beat a single high/max level character. Of course the high level player may still be able to out-wit or out-skill them but purely from a numbers standpoint, he or she should be in trouble.

It sure can, but the disparity is usually lateral in skill-based systems. Like I chose primarily non-combat skills to focus on and when fighting someone who has a lot of combat skills, I would likely be pretty screwed.

Sounds like you prefer lateral progression then..I find leveling useless if you get murdered by someone significantfly lower

Definitely, that's why I dislike overall levels in the first place, it just feels too artificial. You better yourself so you can have an advantage, not so you can be a god. As in reality, if you train in martial arts for years and years you will likely kick anyone's butt who tries to mess with you, but you are not impervious.

I value the feeling of progression, for example I hated GW2's down-leveling system, but spectacle creep as is seen in WoW and other Theme Parks of its ilk has really got to be reeled in. It's not even that a level 1 can be completely decimated by a level 90, but a level 85 stands zero chance against a level 90 as well. Even a level 89 would have to work really hard and likely catch the 90 off-guard to have a shot at killing him/her. The disparity based on overall level is insane. I much prefer player skill to win out over numbers, though numbers should always play a role.

Instead of this artificial upscaling as is done in Cyrodiil, why not just create a system where a level 10 has a chance against a level 50, however slight it might be.

Isn't that exactly what it is?

No, because of the ridiculous disparity, they upscale everyone to level 50 and their stats are all changed. The difference is you will have your same level's gear and no extra skills, but that hardly matters in the heat of battle, I've found. Same kinda deal as how they upscaled everybody for GW2's PvP. Just feels so fake...

What I'm saying is, without any stat scaling, if the system had less disparity, a level 10 could feasibly catch a level 50 off-guard and out-maneuver, and out-skill (player skill) them so they could actually kill them. I'm saying that's a good thing. If a lone player at level 50 comes across 5 players at level 10, that should be an even fight if gear and player skill are level across the board.

What is the motivation to level if everything is handed to you? If you get all your stats boosted to equal as high gear and get new abilities..what motivation would a level 49 have to hit 50, or a level 50 have to get gear?

Maybe I'm old fashioned.. but if you put more effort and work into leveling you should get better results

Well, in ESO you are only boosted to level 50 in PvP, as I'm sure you're aware, so in PvE there is still a reason to level. For PvP the only reason is to collect higher level gear and to unlock more skills.

Yeah the more effort you put in the better you should be, but nothing should ever make you invulnerable, IMO.

Or ... more to the point. What is the point of a leveling scheme when all it does is constantly adjust the challenges to be slightly challenging with rewards that assure the next notch up is ... slightly challenging.

To me the argument for no leveling comes down to what then does determine challenge. With the solo games and the lovely, lovely modding that goes with them this issue has been addressed several different ways. For the Oblivion mods there are basically three schemes:

OOO: A static leveled world. The deepest and furthest dungeons out have the hairiest encounters available to encounter at game start. The idea - the greater the risk the greater the reward.

Frans: A re-leveling scheme that offered options for adjusting mobs and boss strength. More customizable, but the generic settings are that it is more challenging than vanilla scheme where there is always just a slight challenge.

TIE: No leveling. Every encounter is a random roll. You could face a god-like creature and only get an iron dagger as a reward, or beat down a weak goblin and get a magic dagger of god killing.

With the vanilla/native games the leveling is secondary to the skills. The skills are even more primary in Morrowind and Oblivion than attributes. Leveling serves no other purpose in these games than measuring the character power and adjusting the world to provide some challenge. Every once in a while there is a game check for level before offering a quest, but often these are based more on skill level, because in the solo games skill level is the real deal. TES level scaling has been failry broken since Morrowind, but other games do get it right - gothic games for sure felt challenging most of the way through.

By having classes and specifically a set number of skills available then on top of that have the leveling drive skill development - this turns around a rather large part of what sets TES apart from other rpg titles. Perhaps I'm being petty, but I don't think so.

Again the point of the leveling is to set challenge. I've no problem with a leveling scheme per se ... as long as there is a chance that I could encounter more than a slight challenge as time goes on and that this more than a slight challenge took various forms. Again mod variety is my language for this and as overhauls for these games have matured what we see is a blending of the above thee options. Some areas static and always dangerous. Some areas scaled more steep. Some areas just being a wild card.

This slight challenge is further diluted by the nature of MMO encounters. These mobs just stand there and literally you can run right by them without their attacking. Stand 15 feet away and they just sit there staring at you doing nothing. With the ability to ignore any encounter or fully heal between encounter without the use of magics - to me these games (and this one too) are always feeling like a casual gaming experience of leisure. Social gaming. It is like if you can't stand the heat just take space and the challenge is 100% fresh and ready to go again. That bleeds the urgency out of the game and leaves one with nothing to do but the grind.

Right here is a good point: Player skill versus character skill. To kick that horse one more time ... MMO games tend to not really emphasize player skill and so the grind isn't really about increasing player skill and instead is all about character skill. To me, a great game is one where the synergy of player and character skill are a sum force greater than the parts. Where you are locked in the zone. When the game mechanics stick out like a sore thumb then it is easy to cry the game is not balanced (and it probably isn't) or not a good game.

Some how some way there has to be some level scaling. Just how it is scaled where there is challenge and not annoyance is the key.

I still don't see how they are going to pull off subscription though. seriously?

I'll be honest..I read maybe two paragraphs (no offense, I have the attention span of a goldfish).

I don't mind either way what the scheme of progression is..I'd prefer lateral progression. If there is a leveling setup though, I'm just wondering how inefficient it is of having the system difference so minute that levels don't matter one way or the other..might as well just have lateral progression if they went down that route.

They did this in SWTOR and we found the level 50 players were seriously outmatching the lower levels.

The Bounty Hunter for example at level 50 could have some awesome crowd control abilities and in pvp take out full groups of level 10 to 30 players without breaking a sweat. Meaning in some arenas where you had two doors to pick from a level 50 bounty hunter would watch one door by himself while the lower level Empire players watched the other door making it impossible for the Republic players to get past any of them due to the Stun locks the Empire players could pull off.

Which is why I am dubious of it working in Cyrodiil as I have had experience of this gameplay before and know that its not going to work.

Also I think they put in levels to give a sense of achievement to the players as games can do without them as SWG and UO have done as well as Eve Online. I blame D&D pnp for this mindset as I use to play WFRP myself were we had no class or level system. Which was a better playstyle.

Trying to hone in one what I was getting at above.

For me Oblivion level scaling was broken due to the scale always being slightly more challenging, but I think the developers made a noble effort in trying to tie player skill to character skill.

Take marksmanship for example. Whether you hit or not had a lot to do with the player aiming and hitting with the game mechanics. If there is a hit then the skill level increases for the character. If enough skill level increases happen then the character levels and this doesn't result in any character gets more power options and instead it only means that the world notches up the scale of challenging new material. That is a very good synergy of player and character skills.

I guess in MMO talk I mean only PvE issues here. Can't all the PvP level scaling issues of scaling be worked out with server options?

But in this MMO the only real player skill I noticed was lockpicking. Even blocking seem more randomized and not necessarily to succeed just because you did the action. Because of this it all seems to be about character skill progression and that grind and less about immersing the player in the world of the character. Feels not like TES and more like Wow clone MMO. Tabbed targeting with archery - blech.

i personally enjoy leveling and prefer playing a game with them. i will just call its a personal preference though as its an argument no one will ever win

Oh, I wouldnt say the argument is unwinnable.... In fact it seems most posters in this topic are in favor of a skill progression game over a level progression game.... However.... knowing who is behind the design of ESO, I have a feeling this game will never be anything but level progression, even if the entire elder scrolls community was against it. It is after all, an MMO, and we all know that MMO's anymore have an unyielding template. And alot of gamers are sick to death of it.

Every argument ever is unwinnable on these forums ~_~

Level progression ends at 50. The skill progression continues on beyond max level.