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FANBOY ALERT

I like Fallout.

FANBOY ALERT

As much as I play, and as much as I ponder past experiences, I still like it. Except, there is one thing I think is out of place. I don't like the leveling; I think I prefer how The Elder Scrolls does it more. Both games use a combination of skill, experience, and levels; just in different ways.

In Fallout, you get experience, then level up, and choose what skills to improve.

In Skyrim, you use skills, get experience, then those skills level up.

It sounds like the Mojave Wasteland would be less restrictive about this, but it's a realism point I'm forced to consider. In Fallout, you can shoot people until you're good at making persuasive arguments and operating computers. In Skyrim, you shoot people, then you get better with bows, for shooting people.

In another caffeine-addled discussion from last night, I talked with a few fellow players about leveling up, and its relation to difficulty. We decided on the following:

• We dislike level requirements. "You don't have enough levels to pick up a sword"
• We dislike level zones. "You don't have enough levels to try this level."
• We think levels should expand the character, not restrict them. As a level 1 with a dingy iron sword and a few loaves of bread, I want to be able to try to fight Azgoloth the Great Devourer. I'm going to die no matter what I try, but I'd at least like to try. Maybe once I hit level 9, I'll have enough cool skills to take him on, using my skill as a player to compensate for my inadequacies as a character.
• We're okay with needing certain items to go to certain places. Legend of Zelda was the key point in this one. "You need the iron boots to do the water dungeon." We're okay with this.
• We like it when games challenge the players over the characters. Legend of Zelda, again, provides a good argument. Every enemy requires your wits and abilities as a player, not what gear you're wearing or how many levels link has in throwing bombs at people.

Leveling up is a tedious, glorious pasttime. The quote I remember was, "I hate leveling up." In context, I think a better translation is "I hate grinding." Everybody likes levels, but nobody likes the tedious grind to climb them. I very handily agree with this.

To that end, I've made a level-up mechanic for the EE. You get an extra point in a statistic when you roll a critical success. No levels, no XP, just that sweet, mouth-watering natural 20.

It's something that I haven't seen in other games (just me, I'm sure it exists somewhere), and I think there may be a reason for that.

In a game where players can make challenges for themselves (I'm going to lift this big rock), it would be all too easy to farm levels out of this. A player-made grind. And without a difficulty scale, the necessity to do the grind in new places would vanish.

It's a fun idea, for sure- but it needs a lot of renovation done on it. I'll keep dredging for ideas, and see what I come up with.