[tcaudilllg]

Why not tie dungeons to levels? Make the hero's level dependent on the dungeon: each dungeon has its own level variable. You start at 1 and go to as far as the dungeon allows. Then when you go to a different dungeon, start back at 1 and go up again!

[Ninkazu]

The only illusion of progress is the next area. You are pigeon-holed into only attacking one dungeon at once (in the order the game dictates), and starting back at level one is just a slap in the face for all the work you just put in. The artificial cap also makes it seem like there's no way you could possibly do better than the game says you should. You can't grind up and rain unmerciful hell on the enemies, which is pretty fun sometimes.

Has a kind of lather, rinse, repeat feel to it. Do not want.

[Hajo]

[tcaudilllg]

I was thinking it would be a good choice for the socionics MMORPG. Levels do not work in MMORPGs, not the way they do in single player RPGs. When you play an MMORPG, you don't want to start at the bottom: you want to tackle what you want when you want to. I was thinking, if you tie the EXP level to the dungeon, then the player can take on any dungeon they want, and still character build relative to it. You could make the dungeon beatable at 70% of the max level, thus giving players 30% more leveling with which to build up and lay waste. In a max 10 level dungeon, at 7 you could finish it; at 8 you could finish it without much trouble; at 9 you would have an easy victory; and at 10, kick the boss' ass.

This way everyone starts at the same page whenever a new dungeon is introduced. Oh damn, I just realized I could have per-dungeon subplots, without tying in to any overall storyline! That would be freedom!

[RampantCoyote]

I think that kinda defeats the whole concept of an RPG. The key thing that makes an RPG an RPG is the idea that the player character progresses to become more effective. With other games, it's just about player skill. What you are suggesting violates that idea --- so what would make it different from a side-scroller where the hero gets power-ups?

There are some systems out there that do some kind of scaling. City of Heroes had a great Sidekicking / Exemplar system that would scale you up to a certain level to be with friends, but you wouldn't get all the ABILITIES that go with that level. While you might be a 20th level character sidekicked to an effective 45th level, you were still a lot weaker than you would be when you truly reached 45th level.

Likewise, a 45th level Exemplars might be "clamped" down to 20th level, losing a lot of abilities... but they still typically had some beefier bonuses than someone truly of only 20th level. Not much - the game seemed more aggressive about scaling down than scaling up - but it was there.

This seemed like a more reasonable compromise. You didn't get reset down to nothing - violating any progress you had previously made - but you do accept a temporary modifier to allow you to play with friends, or to play in content not in your current level range.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[tcaudilllg]

Now that I think about it, this idea has been tried before, many times. Live-A-Live and Odin Sphere, among others. And it worked.

[RampantCoyote]

Can't say I'm familiar with them.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[tcaudilllg]

Those games had a "chapter" format where you played one character per chapter. Each of the characters had to be leveled up from 0, all the way to at least 40.

[RampantCoyote]

Ok. I've been noodling over an episodic RPG format for a few years (just need time... lots and lots of time...), and trying to work out a solution for a case where a player might play the episodes out of order.

I can't say my hybrid idea was brilliant or anything like that, but I was gnawing on kinda the same problem.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[tcaudilllg]

In Odin Sphere, every episode happens at a definite time in the storyline. It's actually quite confusing until you finish the whole game, after which you can go back and browse all the episodes in their intended chronological order. It's a story-book format.