Elvenblade's system has successive proficiency levels, kind of inspired by Might and Magic, except for skillsets instead of individual skills as M&M did. Increased mastery gives access to more complex skills, and different other incidental bonuses in addition, depending on the skill. For weapon skills, this includes mitigating the penalties for using the weapon and reducing the disadvantages and bad critical failures.

(The levels are 'untrained', 'trained', 'expert', 'master', and 'grandmaster', incidentally, with everyone having untrained in a skill to start with)

Maya/Rudha

Personally, I don't think that level restrictions on items is bad game design at all. If Jimmy Newbie sees Bob Awesome wielding the Sword of Certain Victory then asks, "Where do I get that cool weapon?" and Bob replies, "You have to be level 20 to use it anyway." Jimmy will then do one of two things, say "Stuff it" or get to level 20 so he too can use the Sword of Certain Victory. If the game is intended to be a grind (Like most MMOs are) then this is a good thing, because the more incentive to grind, the better.

Do I think it's organic? Would I use it all? The answer to both would be no.

You seem to forget that in most systems, stats increase with level as well, but although that tends to be the case, there are other ways to increase stats that logic dictates would probably allow you to use that kind of weapon.

Maya/Rudha

I've seen some games that have both level and stat requirements. Though they tend to be the grindy ones that allow you to allocate stat points freely each level.

With mine you get lessons and stat points with a level; level itself is basically just a coarse indication of experience. So for example if you want to use heavy weapons when you level up you can spend lessons on training sessions for weapon skills, and up your strength.

Maya/Rudha

It may have already been mentioned, but I've seen cases in DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online…, an MMO) where there is a fairly simple that is available with no license restrictions that somehow ended with a like a lvl. 11 restriction because it obtained somehow by a level 11 player. That's bad in my opinion, level restrictions should be based on item power or some other thing that makes more logical sense.

I would argue that it'd better to have a skill requirement to use it effectively than a hard level cap. I.e., to borrow from above, let's say that the sword of certain victory is a massive broadsword: so, you'd need the strength to hold it, a high enough skill with broadswords to actually hit things consistently, and enough balance to keep you from falling over while using it. That way you can get to use some item by becoming proficient with it not by obtaining some overly arbitrary experience threshold. Of course, you might not be able to use any other weapons very well because you spent so much time working on broadswords. Obviously a low strength character, like elves in some settings, might not be able to use it (but hey, belts of strength bonuses are pretty awesome :P).

So yeah, my two cents. Kavir presents a nice sounding a system up there.

Level restrictions serve two main purposes in most games.

They keep "overpowered" gear out of the hands of newbies… IMO, that's a failure of the game design. You should have your character become more powerful through their skills and abilities, not some costume. One of the things I dislike in most modern MMO's is that I want to beat the mobs, I don't want my epic purple pants to do it for me.

They act as a money sink, since as you level up you will feel compelled to sell/discard your old "worthless" gear and obtain new better gear appropriate to your level. The same thing can be accomplished through repair and/or rent, depending on your game world.

I would take a good look at your combat system and decide which is easier to balance and maintain…. putting minimal changes into your character's stats and skills, and keeping hundreds (or thousands) of items, each with different modifiers, or putting more of the numbers onto the player and letting that amplify small changes on the items.

I sense a strong bias against stat-modifying items, which would surprise me less in a player than in a dev. I think most games that allow for wide modifications via items also allow improvement via skill and stat boosts. From a practical viewpoint, those are just two different ways to reward persistence. So I prefer having both.

Maintaining balance with thousands of items is a continuous challenge, true, but there are numerous advantages. Going beyond the obvious ones (like appealing to a wide audience), it allows you to encourage exploration and to extend the end game potentially endlessly. I may not wish to reward players just for leveling up or maxing out their skill set mechanically–I may wish to reward them for figuring out how to beat a difficult high-end zone…

One way to think of stat-modifying items that may make you hate them less is that they function as little units of toggle-able and combine-able character customization. They are different from stat-modifying spells only in that they are usually permanent, there is no cost to turning them on/off, and some of them are mutually exclusive (same slot).

So, hypothetically speaking, if you offer a skill unlocked at level 50 that boosts damage, can be turned on and off, and can't be enabled together with another similar skill, then you can think of that skill as an item that people get automatically at level 50 and that doesn't take up an inventory/eq slot.

So maybe you do have epic purple pants doing the job for you, but you call them by a different name.

I think decrying level restrictions as curing a symptom is ignoring the practical mechanics they provide. They're a tool for progression. In other words, I don't think that making the argument that because something isn't true to real life that makes it a bad mechanic is an effective or persuasive argument to me. Level restrictions define a very clear single stat that you can use to derive item power programmatically. That in itself is a laudable goal, and if done right, justifies level restrictions on items. Preferences of wanting power to be derived from character skills/stats and not your items is based in idealism about how the game should translate real world concepts into playable moments, but one can counter this arguments very simply by changing the parameters of the theme from medieval to futuristic. The distinction is just the mindset of the player in what is appropriate. (I.e., is the item really just a costume or is it a form of character customization?)

What I'm trying to say is that the design choice itself isn't flawed by nature. Nor is it inferior to a system without item levels. Serves a purpose with a specific dynamic. And the item level in itself doesn't really explain how power is derived from items. For example, I could have items with level restrictions that make no difference other than for vanity reasons. Under these circumstances the level restriction still serves the same purpose: Opportunity for progression.

The theory more fit to be discussed (and more useful, in my opinion) is what is character progression, why do we need it, and where can the tool be applied.

I think level restrictions are a band-aid over the problem of newbie chars having over-powered crap. Which isn't typically a problem with newbies. It's typically a problem when you have a lot of top-end players constantly soup-kitting-up a bunch of level 1 players. IMO, this ruins the fun of the game for all the newbies. So newbs don't stick around long, thus, you end up with a bunch of old angry wankers who just want to be coddled …

I think a rent code is more appropriate than level restrictions. And I think level should have no bearing on rent equipment cost. Only .. experience… should have any bearing on rent equipment cost. Experience is the best judge of a character. It is almost an exact metric of how much grinding they have done. Whether your game has a top level or not, it doesn't have a top experience (if it does, it should be taken down as some kind of abomination.)

The point is - players who put time into playing will accumulate experience, and deserve to be rewarded with the items they accumulate. If they (and your game policy allows this) choose to distribute those items over multiple characters, the characters should be charges based on the individual experience of that character, not the ring-leader who has distributed all this stuff to their own private tribe.

Salient points:

Equipment rent costs for top-end eq need to be REALLY HIGH.
Rent costs for super experienced players approaches zero.
When high-end players offload eq onto low-end characters, they get hit with giant charges.
Newbies can have super high-end crap. This is probably not usual. It just costs a ton. What reason is there to disallow this? Newb storage chars are not possible, as top-end eq has ridiculous rent.

Thus, as is the goal, only playable chars can rent out top-end eq.

Bleh I even have an explanation for those people: In a fantasy world where magic occurs every item is magical, and if you dont reach a certain level, the items just refuse to be touched by such a lower being. Deal with it, low life form.

This is just another point of view, but I always found rent systems to be a strong-handed way of strong-handing people into playing when they don't want to. I've never been for these at all, and think they are just as much of a bandaid as level limits.

I'd much rather set a "level" on an item, but scale its effectiveness down drastically if you are under the minimum level needed to use the item.

Alternatively, or additionally, I really like the idea of certain items not lasting forever. If you can't ever break or lose something, players accumulate wealth linearly, and your economy gets pretty silly after a few years. Perhaps lower level players using higher level gear accumulate wear on said items faster than normal, since they don't really have the know-how to take care of their more advanced equipment yet.

To reiterate:

• Consider scaling damage and other bonus effects down if the user is below the gear's level.


• Equipment wear can lessen the linear stockpiling. Perhaps people using gear that is too advanced for them see accelerated wear and tear on said gear.

It would be interesting to see how people reacted to a mud that applied the rent mechanics to other features. Imagine an advancement system where players have to earn X exp per real life day (where X scales based on level), and if they don't manage to earn enough their character starts losing levels, eventually dropping back to level 1.

Rent was just another form of communism.

Yeah, rent just seems like punishment for your casual players. And let's be honest, there are a lot more casual players, since the "MUD generation" has aged, started families, careers, and other stuff.

You guys sound like spoiled kids. :)

Rent used the be the NORMAL way equipment was controlled, not some obscure torture device as you seem to think it's designed to be. None of the players on my mud minded it, and in fact many rather enjoyed being able to (temporarily) run around with high level gear that they could have fun with for a few hours, but couldn't afford to actually keep.

Rent and equipment wear are perfectly reasonable ways to balance your equipment power against misuse by lower level characters. You simply have to find a balance where it's not difficult to afford the rent costs if you're of the appropriate level to be using that gear.

Another way would be to scale gear to the player's level or skill, but then you have the problem of gear simply being a pretty "skin" on something that really works the same as everything else. IE: the "holy avenger" looks pretty compared to the "wooden training sword", but if they both scale, their effectiveness won't be THAT different.

A possible way around THAT would be to restirct special abilities to appropriate level/skill ranges. The "holy avenger" and the "wooden training sword" both do <level> d8 + <level> physical damage, but the "holy avenger" also casts "bless" if you're at least level 10, and does an extra <level> d4 holy damage, and if you're level 20, it can proc "turn undead", and "flamestrike" at a <level-15>% chance per critical hit.

But the unseen "hand of God" which says "NAY MORTAL! THOU MAY NOT WIELD SUCH A POWERFUL WEAPON!" is just plain stupid.

I've always thought people pushed for equipment to be more powerful and it reduces the use of skills. In D&D anyone can pick up a +5 Sword of Death, but a first level fighter is not going to hit as often as a 20th level with it, nor do as much damage, score as many crits, etc…

Rent is not punishment if it fades out with experience. Then, your super old wizard, whom everybody knows and respects as the lore-master of the mud, can log on whenever she wants and not be charged rent because she has 2 bazillion experience points. And when you log on your level 1 fighter in top kit gear, you better be prepared to grind it out for a few days to pay for that…

This gives incentive also into playing your favorite characters more, not just dumb getting a bunch of characters of every class to top level.

First MUD I played seriously had rent, so my earliest experiences were of that. First MUD that I played without rent? Pretty much no going back for that.

I think there are much more elegant and less annoying ways to regulate high powered equipment than rent. That seems clunkier than level restrictions, honestly.

the only good point for me so far, but that can probably be implemented in another way.

I have seen people specifically ask if they were rent, just because they would have left immediately if there was one!