I should start by playing counter-point to myself to stay grounded. If every game with level-up components only gave level-ups when it was “important” or truly advancing the story or the character, it would happen a lot less often. Some people want fast, rapid level ups to occur quite often, or at least some of the time. It would suck if leveling-up always had to be purposeful. Most of us want a little – or a lot – of chaos depending on the game, our mood, or what-have-you.
And with that said.. No. Pointless level-up systems for the sake of making you think you’re playing an RPG will not only dilute the experience overall; it also acts as a form of deception. “Hey, play our game! Level up, empower your characters, save the universe!” I’m down with generally purpose-less leveling up – in many RPGs it’s just a way to incrementally measure the growth of your characters. The actual numbers are not related to the game world and serve only to break the fourth wall and give you a frame of reference. That’s well enough. The weird part is when the leveling system is applied to your general account for the game; and it’s so arbitrary that it might as well not even be there.
This strand of thought cropped up while I tried out the mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. The game is generally enjoyable right away, even if it quickly showed itself to be a clone of the same style used in the mobile game Independence Day Battle Heroes and other titles. Didn’t seem too grindy for awhile, lots of characters to go for. Everyone could find a few favorites, and there are even “less popular” characters you can dig into like Biggs Darklighter or a random Jawa. Unfortunately “spotlight” characters like Kylo Ren are given more powerful capabilities and bias, but it was still good to see more than just the popular characters. Sure enough, I was able to get a full set of five light-side characters trained up and outfitted with decent gear. But something really stuck out like an eyesore the more I explored the game’s many features.
Almost everything of equal interest to the squad-based combat is locked behind a player level-up wall. Not a pay wall. A level-up wall. Not character levels – my account’s level. I get that, and at the same time “I know what you’re up to.” Anywho, let’s snap back to the grid (get back to the main point).
Like any good ol’ level-up system, each player level takes a bit more experience in total to trigger. The experience points required increase a bit more each time, which at first seems fine. Experience is earned in tiny increments from the general star map progression of squad-based combat – five or six experience points for awhile. Seems OK, trickle or moderate XP for the base game content is normal and fair. What gets strange, is how much your progress relies on daily activity tasks. A supplemental boost is one-thing, but it can take 500 squad missions for me to level-up once where the daily tasks will do that in much, much shorter order. I understand the incentive to play a little each day in that way, but it seems to make the main gameplay meaningless in terms of experience point earnings. They might as well not even be a reward. And suppose you don’t prefer doing all the daily tasks? In short, variety players will get the most out of the system and have the most enjoyment. People with favorite game modes or activities will suffer for playing their own way.
This gets compounded into random oblivion when looking at the gated content types. I have a little alert in the corner of the dashboard for the ongoing Rey event, and when I tap on it I am told that I need to be level 25 to do events. Okay, fair enough. Powered through as a free-to-play user by relying on those daily activity tasks. Got to level 25 in two days! Oh, wait, I’m being taken to some general events page with a ton of gated-off content. There’s a Ship event I can try to go for, and get a Resistance Pilot character – yay – but no Rey. Where’s the Rey event? Scroll to the right a bunch, there it is, locked until I reach player level 50. There are 17 hours left in the event. Talk about crappy communication and/or honesty. What is it about free-to-play status being a justification for an overabundance of content walls?
In conclusion, I find it baffling that the leveling system relies so much on doing daily activity tasks, demeans the value of the main squad-based combat mode, and provides an account-based player level for the sole purpose of making you play for so long that you A. end up staying a long time and/or B. are one of thousands of people who help boost the game’s playerbase as a result. For no other reason than keeping you longer and eventually seeing the mythical “ship combat.” At least in Independance Day Battle Heroes I got ship combat right from level 1. My fault for preferring that a bit more to squad-based ground battles I guess.
To any game developers and designers out there: Please take care with how you gate-off content and game modes.