Upgrade Systems Sure Are Weird, Huh?
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- čas přidán 4. 03. 2020
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Upgrade systems are everywhere in games nowadays, and yet even when seemingly every other aspect of a game has been morphed into a storytelling device of some kind, I can only think of a few examples where the act of improving your character and the system driving it all are used to any great narrative effect. Let's take a look at a few examples and see if we can figure out why that might be.
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Writing on Games gamers got used to upgrade systems 🤷
Please make some pauses while talking, there is so much interresting information blasting into my brain nonstop, it's quite overwhelming.
Besides that - great video, keep the content comming. :)
Ya know... I think this is one of the reasons why people loved the inventory/upgrade system in Resident Evil 4. Aside from using Yellow Herbs (which are a physical item in the game) in order to increase your/Ashley's health, all other upgrades (from weapons and attachments, to the inventory screen itself) are handled mostly by the Merchant, a denizen of the lands who seems to be up to something completely different from the cult (and we never find out what), and the currency that you pilfer from the former human monstrosities that inhabit the Spanish countryside/castle/industrial complex. You're constantly picking up boxes of coins, gold bars, gems, and other treasures, and either trading them in for cash, or selling excess items, in order for the Merchant to make your gear better. It's all handled within the context of the games story as you (as Leon) seems to share this strange symbiotic relationship with said merchant along the journey.
Other games you should probably look at with interesting Upgrade/Skill mastery systems that tie into the narrative to a degree:
Code Vein (specifically how Blood Codes work)
Yakuza 0 (tying your characters skill based growth into the economic boom the game is set in)
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1/2 (mostly with how masters teach you new skills, and side-quests with skills as a reward tend to have characters present that use said skills to make it seem like your character is copying off of them)
Persona 4/5 (where interaction with NPCs and "leveling up" the social interaction in the "real world" has benefits in the dungeon crawling "shadow world", ranging from extra skills, party buffs, even things that can effect encounters outside of battling)
In far cry 3 you get more tribal tattoos, which serve as your upgrades. This makes sense, seeing as how having more tribal tattoos makes you more of a duche, and thus, more powerful.
I'm glad someone else sees this
Well it ties directly into the story and makes you relate more to the protagonist. As you become more powerful, get more upgrades and start to find the game more fun, Jason also starts to enjoy killing in the story more. That's also a reason why it works to have certain upgrades locked until you complete a story mission where it doesn't in other games.
Far Cry 3 is actually the story Jason made up at a Bar to explain his tribal sleeve.
This one that looks like a giraffe riding a stop sign on my arm there? That one's M A X I M U M A R M O R.
H A That makes sense right up till the end as both endings seem like he shoots himself in the leg with it
_"My Motto is to be stronger than Yesterday,_
_if I have to I'll be stronger than half a day ago, even a minute ago!"_
*-Rock Lee*
"Human beings are strong because we have the ability to change ourselves."
-Saitama
@Rtkts Grow Fat from Strength
-Emperor Calus
Can you please add some kind of titles / pop-up bubbles for all the games you are showing on screen for future videos? Sometimes I see some cool game or whatever and have no idea what it is.
Indeed...
I'm really curious about 0:21 and 3:38
Edit: 3:38 is "a short hike".
@@PauLtus_B 0:21 is Outer Wilds. It's amazing, if you like exploring.
@@fy-e Thank you!
You could have used Deus Ex: Human Revolution for this perfect example, your body has been augmented and you can upgrade your own body. That's the best upgrade system that affects your character that makes the most sense of all, especially cause points are granted by credit system and availability at clinics or finding an upgrade device through the story that allows the update. At the beginning of the story you are told you have every single upgrade installed in your body as well, you just need to unlock them as you learn how to use your new body. That's the best game to talk about Upgrade Systems, IMO. Especially when the whole game is about augmentation and transhumanism.
Agreed, I think upgrade systems are best when there’s at least some attempt to justify why or how you’re actually getting the new abilities, whether it’s ambiguous crafting (weapons in Control) or an implied increase in physical prowess and experience (stamina Upgrades, etc in Death Stranding). Far Cry 5 is definitely an egregious example; not sure how shooting a bunch of people magically makes me obtain a parachute.
You looted it when you weren't looking? :)
Actually, on the topic of Control. The main character gains abilities as she "absorbs" real "augmented" (or something like that) objects which have a certain power liked to them and sort of tie to the story. At least in the sense that you have to control them to restore the Oldest House to normal.
Transistor has an interesting upgrade system tied to narrative, give it a look!
DavidTanisDreams transistor was amazing! i hope he talks about it in a video some day
Hades also does a good job of carrying that idea into SuperGiant's latest game - your upgrades are literally deals made with various gods.
Vampyr and Disco Elysium both integrate upgrade systems into their stories really well really well.
Shame Vampyr sucks horribly. The worst money I've ever spent. And I was really looking forward to it.
I think vampyr was a decent game but could have used a bigger budget and more time
Prey is another perfect example of a good upgrade system. The upgrades are grounded and explained in the universe, and the upgrades you choose are directly relevant to the plot and the themes of the game.
Arkane is usually pretty good at this, Dishonored let's you reject an entire set of abilities, if you want nothing to do with the Outsider.
Furthermore getting too many upgrades can actually be detrimental to the player in Prey, since pumping so much alien DNA into your eyesockets tends to piss off the alien DNA detecting security measures.
"Upgrade" system from GTA San Andreas was surprisingly good. Our character had only one way to get better at something: to practice. His lungs don't magically grow in size, we have to swim underwater. His stamina is increasing the more we run, he's getting better at driving the more we drive around (and we can take driving/piloting lessons to boost it). Want to improve your aim and stability? Shoot and learn.
I just hated to swim in circles for minutes because game required me to level up lungs.
@@CerealKiller actually Gnidel is right. There was one mission in the second town that wouldn't let you start until CJ lungs were big enough. I believe it had something to do with a cargo ship and swimming under some rocks.
Same thing in the later part of the game, missions on an air strip - you can't start till you finish pilot school.
"I've found myself more and more gravitating towards games that told their stories through mechanics"
Yup, That's my gaming experience in a nutshell these last two years. I still enjoy a good ol' AAA with narrative elements like God of War (and I intend to play the shit out of The Last of Us Part II), but my eyes are constantly driven to more "pure gameplay" experiences and games that fully utilize the interactive nature of games.
And I'm pretty sure I have this channel and a couple of others (like Mark Brown or Architect) to blame for that. And I love you for that.
Cheers!
I've gone from playing BF3 and COD back in the day to going back playing old CRPGS like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2 and Arcanum, then going towards content rich games like Cataclysm: Dark days ahead and Elona+, the only non indie game I look forward to now is Elden Ring and Doom. Eternal
(SPOILERS for TLoU and GOW) I'd argue that God of War and The Last of Us (though you didn't include the latter, I imagine it fits in what you describe) are telling their stories through gameplay.
Maybe not as explicitly as other games like Kentucky Route Zero, Gone Home or Outer Wilds, but I think they still manage to do it. For example, dramatizing Kratos' utter inability to solve any problem without violence and his need to raise Atreus into becoming something different from him (and you, as the player, losing control of his command at a certain point during the game); or The Last of Us, where Joel needs, in spite of his wishes, Ellie's assistance to go through puzzles or combat scenarios, further developing their relationship; or when the ending of the game parallels his carrying of Sarah at the beginning.
I think these triple A games are really fine-tuning the balance between delivering a fun game for the masses and a unique story deeply personnal to the creators, and the barrier between gameplay and narrative seems to be disolving.
@@julianorozaa Good point for you, even if I will say that it's truly valid only for Last of Us, in which the relationship between Joel and Ellie is actually portrayed by the gameplay, and that provides enough freedom to actually put you in the shoes of your characters and make you feel like what they should feel.
I found that God of War had very few moments in which gameplay is used to carry the story (the one you quoted and the two ambushes of the undead that come just before and just after Kratos gets the Blades of Chaos are the two only ones I can think of, to be honest, and that's light for a 40-hours-long game), the rest of the time, I found that gameplay was actually working against the story, which spoiled most of my pleasure in that game despite its great qualities.
This is pretty much why I have a Monster Hunter addiction.
Yeah, It might not dive deep (or at all) into concepts like The Nature of Hunting, "Are we the baddies?" or The greed/bloodthrist that humans naturally have.
It does not follow a story about how an EPIC LEGENDARY CHOSEN ONE GOES TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM MUTANT OVERGROWN CHICKENS.
It is all about a god damn Monster Hunter and his Monster Hunting Life.
And the development of such story is custom tailored to each player. How you go from small shitty monster hunting to suplexing world-ending threats is entirely personal. You physically have to go throught all the micro and macro steps to become a Legendary Hunter.
The best part is that all the things that you need to succeed are entirely within you, yeah, you need to upgrade your gear so you might not take 49 minutes killing something, but the upgrades are only time savers or things that make you more comfortable, at the end, it is all about precision, patience, reflex and positioning.
TL;DR Go play MonHun.
I think it is best to get a synthesis of both. I remember DOOM 2016 as a great game with top mechanics but i struggled being engaged. Adding a solid Story (DOOM Eternali hope) should provide an experience with story. And this could be more than the sum of it's parts.
The xp-based progression systems are usually derived from classic tabletop rpgs. The problem is, while they make sense in that context (to keep complexity to an acceptable degree), when they are transported in videogame firm, their absurdities can become glaring (e.g. learn how to pick locks better by killing monsters). To avoid this, more sensible approaches could be taken (and indeed they have been, even in older games); however, this needs both thought and a conscious, calculated effort, and that's something often neglected by modern development pipelines...
Yes but in the original tabletop RPGs (such as AD&D) I believe that, at least at higher levels, (maybe at all levels - I cannot remember) it was assumed that before you could "level up" you had to first get the experience necessary to do so, find an NPC higher level than you in your class that would be willing to teach you, be willing to have enough money to pay for your training, and then your character could spend weeks or even months (in game) to go through the leveling up process. Still somewhat abstract, of course being a game, but I think that the additional step of having to find a teacher to let you level up got dropped from video game RPGs. Video game RPGs, in their infancy (Dragon Quest, FInal Fantasy, and others) were heavily influenced by AD&D but obviously had to be much more streamlined due to limited hardware and software limitations of the time. Those early video game RPGs then went on to influence all the way to modern video game RPGs and I think there has been some "reverse" influence back to tabletop RPGs in this and other areas.
@@matthewrawls1184 absolutely, in tabletop rpgs there were some mitigating factors, like the game master's supervision, and his common sense to boot. Problem is, these factors are purposefully ignored when the same systems are ported to videogames. Again, streamlining and oversimplification are applied, when in videogames more complex rules and calculations could be easily implemented (where in tabletop form they could be too cumbersome or grind the game to a halt).
@@QuintusCunctator Yep. I also find it somewhat fascinating how these systems have been further streamlined and simplified into games which at this point are basically action games and not really "rpgs" (such as the newer Assassin's Creed games). I can enjoy those games myself but it is interesting to me to see systems like xp progression get further and further "mainstream". I think even multiplayer FPS games like Call of Duty and sports games even have xp progression systems. It's just interesting to me...
I'm 70 hours into my third playthrough of Witcher 3 (this time on Switch) and that game's upgrade system is incredibly weird. Geralt is supposed to be this close-to-century-old monster hunter, but doesn't have any abilities save for the base skills at the start of the game. This stops being a problem in the end of the game when he has gained many skills, but it's still very silly. Oh, and he can only know a limited number of abilities at once, so the player is equipping and unequipping different skills regularly. I don't know if I'm to justify it as his old amnesia giving him a hard time or just plain weird.
Yeah, the skill trees in the Witcher 3 are weird.
I quite liked the decoctions in that game though. Nothing makes you feel like a Monsterhunting Mutant like killing certain ennemies to harvest their essence and gain some of their abilities.
Alchemy has always been one of my favorite aspects of the Witcher games. The way it makes me think about what is coming up and prepare for it is very immersive and satisfying. Unfortunately it has been streamlined and simplified to the point of undermining it's own mechanics. (Like opening the inventory mid-combat and applying or re-applying an oil onto your blade.) It was at it's best in the first Game when ingredients had secondary substances you could combine for additional effects.
Never played the Witcher, but I heard it was a very good game. I should try it sometime...
Anyway, considering what you just said, I think I know of a game that has a similar upgrade style: Code Vein. Ok, I'll be fair, it's not an award winning game by any stretch, but it has a rather interesting upgrade/skill system. Sure, it mostly runs on the classic souls formula for general stats, but it mostly goes into the characters "survive-ability" in the offense/defense department (automatically. No picking which stats to beef up this time).
With that said, there is a completely different upgrade group in the form of "Blood Codes", which are, in of themselves, pre-set builds that act as armor, skills, and alters your characters numbers through amplifying grades (D- being the lowest and A+ being the highest). You start out with three, and you gain many, many more over the course of the game, some of which are even given to you through NPCs. You can swap out a Blood Code at any time and plug in any "mastered" skill (active or passive) you have. There are two ways to master a skill. One is to have the source "Blood Code" and the skill active, and play normally (this is justified as, since you're sort of a vampire, killing and feeding on the blood of your enemies and gaining the in game currency, it helps awaken the underlying potential of your current blood code). The other way is to cash in the currency you've been collecting, as well as utilizing "awakening" materials (which are objects in the game you either find or farm off of certain enemies) in order to straight up unlock it for use. After that, you can practically mix and match blood codes with skills and your gear in order to make whatever build for whatever situation on the same character.
This isn't even getting into the fact that, due to how vampires work in the game, some blood codes are incomplete, and require the player to find items called "vestiges" in order to quite literally recover the memories of the blood code's former owner in order to awaken to previously locked skills.
It's extremely complex, and can be a bit tedious at times, but half of the game's story revolves around blood codes, vestages, and lost memories, and couldn't be any more fascinating as a concept.
@@1Synner If you want to play The Witcher you should keep one thing in mind. It's not your story, and it's not your world.
It's Geralts story, on an absolutely horrible continent.
Oh, don't worry. I know the difference between a character driven story based RPG and an "immersive" CaC based RPG.
@@1Synner Alright. Loot is essentially Diablo style. You have a few tiers, level requirements, etc,.
Higher tier, higher level, better effects and more damage.
Your goal is to be efficient and kill monsters with as little damage taken to your weapons or gear.
You'll always need more money. You're biggest expenses will be alchemy ingredients you can't harvest, and repairs for all your gear.
You can explore areas to grind ability points.
You'll want to specialize, since your mutations and abilities tend to multiply your power.
Your goal is to kill monsters and make money.
Your first long while is going to be spent doing simple enough Contracts (we have a thing that needs killing) and quests (this island is cursed as shit) while you try to stumble across better gear and get the reagents you need for alchemical potions and oils and toxins and whatnot.
Making potions is always worth it. They're not single use, they recharge when you rest. So you only need to make your Swallow potion once, then you automatically turn alcohol into potions whenever you take a rest.
Lastly, the structure of the game is fluid. Really, it's not the moment to moment adventures of Geralt, it's his story being relayed by Dandelion. Time doesn't pass, the world is quite literally on hold for you.
Geralt doesn't get much XP for slaying random monsters and bandits. Going for contracts is what you wanna be doing more often.
You mentioned Nier (awesome, cheers!) for chip upgrades and how it works with the physical body in world, souls style. It's also interesting how upgrading weapons get you better stats, skills, combo chains and additional story directly from its previous owner.
Considering weapons are revealed to hold memories cached as data of its owner, it makes sense that it gives you more combos as you subtly become more synced to the owners mindset. Pros and cons on how to perform upgrades (material focused rather than objectives from the weapon story) but it's pretty well done to expand your mindset- as is an underlying theme of Nier with loss and identity.
Prey's neuromod system is brilliant in this aspect. almost entirely diagetic. There isn't a typical XP bar, but instead the world and enemies you kill are the more fluid representation as you get closer and further away from the neuromod items as you explore and fight (things that abstractly award you experience in other games). The neuromod itself is an in universe item representation of a level up, fully explained and important to the story and setting of that game.
I can only agree with you. The leveling - or upgrade - system is something that isn't emphasised enough in most games. Though, in all honesty, my standards aren't as high as yours - for me, it is enough when the game actually explains how the character improves - like in the elder scrolls series where you gain proficiency in certain skills, or the surge where leveling up means just being able to equip more core implants (which are kinda similar to chips in nier automata) as your exo rig gains more capacity - instead of just throwing experience at me for killing enemies or completing quests. That tends to ruin the immersion for me.
Anyways, great video. Hope to see you around.
im amazed Undertale's 'exp' wasn't mentioned at all here. probably the most wild lampshade i've seen of it in a game
It's probably because discussing it spoils the experience of getting there yourself.
Undertales system only works because we're used to the "regular" style. It's a subversion of player expectations :)
Heh, "lampshade"
Prey has you stab Neuromods into your brain that instantly projects previous volunteers years of training and experience in mere seconds. The best part is that later in the game these Neuromods can be used to extract memories from enemies too, giving you their abilities. Best upgrade system ever!
This made me think of Prototype's upgrade system. More specifically, there was a skill that let you accuse a random soldier of being you (allowing you to quietly eat someone while everyone was busy shooting them). It wasn't much, but the upgrades were basically locked behind the late game. Which corresponded to how scared all the soldiers were of you, explaining how it went from the version that needed you to start fist-fighting your hapless patsy and scream for "help" and the version that just let you point and accuse someone.
The word you're looking for is "diegetic".
It's really not.
@@elcidbob Diegetic Mechanics:
Are verbs / actions.
Exist for both the player and the player character in the game.
Have a slower pace than common mechanics.
Have low abstraction from their real world counterpart.
Are focused on the action itself and not on the result of the action.
Add a sense of presence.
I'd say that fits perfectly, actually.
@@MixedRhythm I leave off pointing out that diagetic is a filmmaking term that only refers to sound and is being stupidly over generalized in other fields, but I will ask how in the world a fighter swinging a sword into bad guys over and over again (exercise) making his strength go up ever so often is somehow not a diagetic even with this silly attempt at drawing a distinction?
elcidbob I leave off pointing out diegesis is a Greek term about a story being told by the speaker instead of performed, with details of the world that the story takes place in being explicitly described to the listeners, and thus diegetic elements are elements which take place in the story. So this use of diegetic is perfectly fine. Furthermore, if you are going to be a pedantic prescriptivist, at least be right about it.
@@grahamrich9956 lol, you're a literal idiot. "Diagetic" and "diagesis" are different words. You can't use the definition of one as the definition of the other just to try to sound right. Even if you wanted to argue that we were simply dealing with the adjective form of the same word, you'd have to ignore that this is jargon being used in a specific sense. But no, you've got to make a desperate bid to save your pathetic internet ego, so you're going to continue to try to use outdated and general definitions for jargon just so maybe some other idiots think you're right.
One of my favourite studios (Arkane Studios) made some amazing games where the skill points are physical items in the world (in Prey you can literally craft them). My only complaint with their system is that the items then become arbitrary skill points. Like, the items “directly” give you powers, but then you need 2 or 4 or 5 for just one power. That being said, it was still really cool that you had to find and collect the skill points throughout the game.
I feel like Code Vein of all games has had a very In Game style of upgrading your main character. The game is a weird mashup of anime and dark souls sensibility, with a deluge of world specific jargon. And yet I find myself invested in learning more because they linked exploration, skill acquisition and narrative beats into the same system with its Blood Codes and Vestiges.
I realized that was a very Hammish Black-esque thing for me to say.
You're absolutely right. Despite how off-beat the game can be at times, Code Vein's explanation of upgrading (both in stats and how Blood Codes work) works so wonderfully well that half the story kind of revolves around it.
I really appreciate Absolver's approach to this. A martial arts game styled as an 'open world' For Honor, the game pops up an unobtrusive hud element every time you encounter a move you haven't seen before. To learn it, you have to successfully defend against it and survive the encounter. You get a small boost from sloppily turtling against it, letting the opponent deal chip damage to your health and stamina -- but you make huge progress when you strike back with a hard counter, showing that you understand the move's place in the game's underlying directional attack system. Ducking a roundhouse kick, sidestepping a Superman punch, jumping over a leg sweep and coming down with an elbow to the temple, etc.
This gives you an interesting choice: do you try to blitz the opponent and eliminate their threat as quickly as possible, or do you play with your food so that you have a greater chance of _learning something_ from the encounter? This balancing act between efficiency and growth becomes especially tense as you're weighing your chances against half a dozen dudes, each as threatening as yourself.
The game's stat allocation _does_ follow the arbitrary spending of stat points though, when I believe it would be stronger if it used a Skyrim-style emergent leveling stat system. It makes no sense to fight with a deck full of Toughness-based attacks and give yourself a Dexterity cookie when you cross some conceptual goalpost -- instead, your body should become stronger _in the ways you use it._
This is super interesting! I think the more tangible upgrade system have a place, like you said, and when used in the right place I think it can improve and build upon the story of a game so well! I hope we see more of it in the future!
Another good example of upgrade systems being tied to story is Prey (2017), not only are the experience points physical objects you collect that are also important to the main story, but the upgrades you gain by them also change how much you are percieved as human by things like turrets and other defense mechanisms.
MHW: Upgrades are based on what monsters you have hunted, player level is tied to what story mission you are up to until you beat the main story. i.e. Only by your own player skill progressing do you progress in the story. (Though there are armor skills which idk how to fit in)
Even though I’m a Patron, I always wait for the CZcams upload to help you out a little more because you are so deserving, Hamish! Going in line with your upgrade system thoughts for games that pronounce its themes through them, I can really only think of Far Cry 3 with the tattoo additions selling away his civility for bloodthirsty means of causing death, Dead Space reinforcing Isaac’s engineer background and showcasing just how poorly optimized these tools were for actually fixing things and not dismembering alien zombies, and lastly Prey 2017 which is all done through the Neuromod upgrade system having you sacrifice your humanity for the strongest Typhon abilities and making the game easier despite the entire game being beatable without using a single one. I never really thought of Sleeping Dogs in this sense and played it about 2 years ago because of your recommendation, but wow now I appreciate it even more!
When you say you've done something so praise-worthy and selfless and good on the internet just out of the goodness out of your heart, it makes it quite a bit more disingenuous. You seem to want Hamish to be thankful and to show his thanks and you want others to thank you as well and shower you in praise and likes. By all means, you deserve it for going to such lengths to support him. Anyone who argues otherwise may as well get banned from commenting here, even if they do so from a good place. There's nothing wrong with wanting your goodness to be appreciated, after all.
Sola I felt that as I was typing it out too and probably should have been reserved for the Discord, but yeah, you aren’t wrong in what you’re saying either and sorry if it seemed like I was trying to gas both myself and Hamish up, but I wasn’t trying to rally any circlejerking or praise to me over Hamish on his own. If it came off as self-congratulatory, I mean it sorta was, then I didn’t mean to, but I know Hamish sees the comments often and this is one of the primary venues I know he comes to after a video’s upload so I wanted to let him know I’m in a portion of his audience looking to support him by any means, especially if it means waiting for the YT upload. Once again, I apologize if it was taken that way and I’ll see about how I word things in the future to show my support in better ways, but overall I’ll stand in that it was relatively harmless as I wasn’t pushing non-supporters to begin to supporting or imposing anything of that caliber on anyone else. And yeah, I shouldn’t be rallying for his digital “walking in the hallways nod of approval” by showing my support expecting a thanks in return and probably should have considered that prior to typing, sorry, that’s on my own hasty commenting end of things lol, I hate it just as much as you and didn’t realize I was doing it myself.
I do all of this on my own. It can be a very isolating, lonely and stressful experience a lot of the time. When you go through all that to get something out there, only to receive a wall of criticism - even the constructive stuff which I definitely appreciate - can still be pretty mentally draining to consume. I tend not to respond to a whole lot of comments and I've really tried to pull back from reading them because of that fact. It's a tough balancing act, especially when so much of sustaining this kind of thing seems to rely so much on engagement and maintaining an Online Personality, which is an approach that really does not suit me. I don't post on Twitter much anymore because a) I genuinely hate that website in a way I hate very, very few things and b) I want to maintain some distance from the internet in order to better connect with the world around me - a mindset that has led to me feeling way better about a lot of stuff in my life, but at the same time has made it way more difficult to maintain people's interest in what I'm making. Basically, as daft as it might sound, all of this stuff can take a toll on people. It certainly has on me.
I released an update video last year where I mentioned how stressful this stuff can be and a theme I noticed in the many messages of support I received (and was unbelievably grateful for) is that many people feel that it would somehow be ass-kissy or lacking in substance or something to just say "hey man, I liked this video a lot! Keep up the good work!" without some kind of criticism to, I dunno, justify commenting or something. People are far more likely to comment if they took issue with something you said, if they needed to express how angry they were with you, than if they just liked the video.
Here's the thing - you'll never know how much even just those couple of sentences saying "good job" or whatever actually meant. I made that update video after dealing with a couple of weeks of seemingly endless comments on my Death Stranding video that really, really got me down at how much they missed the point, how wrong I apparently was, the messages I got telling me to kill myself, all that stuff. It feels kinda weak to say that it got to me as much as it did, but it genuinely sucked. Putting out that update video and getting a bunch of messages just saying "hey, keep it up" in the face of that was unbelievably energising. Not ass-kissy, not lacking in substance, but exactly what I needed to keep going in a time where I was really struggling, feeling wholly isolated and the like.
Who knows, maybe I should just stop reading stuff entirely. Maybe that would be better for my mental health. That said, I see comments like this where people get oddly critical of someone just being nice and my gut instinct is to think "no! Please don't! Creators (certainly not just me) need *more* support like this, not less!" It's incredibly easy to be cynical about it but at the end of the day, we're all human and it's nice to see someone just reach out with some words of encouragement. For what it's worth, that initial comment meant a lot to read (and I'm genuinely not saying that from some weird place of trying to validate you or whatever the heck - hopefully you know by this stage that I think that kinda relationship with fans is suuuper unhealthy for all involved). Thanks for taking the time to write it out.
Anyway, I really don't want this to come across as some woe-is-me bullshit - I just hope it contextualised some stuff about how much supportive messages can actually mean to creators (again, I'm far from the only person this stuff applies to). Essentially, what I've learned after five years of doing this is that it doesn't hurt to be nice and I'm very grateful of those who go to the effort to do so.
@@WritingOnGames Thanks for writing this. I am usually one that tries to write constructive criticism, but I now realize after reading this I should not forget to still compliment the video if it still was a good video. You hear those stories a lot of how stressful reading comments can be to a lot of youtubers, so I certainly will try to make a point of this from now on.
And yes, I wondered the same things sometimes when leveling up, and also one of the best feelings is if you puzzle out an non obvious environmentally story all by yourself going "wow". And I love sleeping dogs, and more and more realizing in every bit of news coming out about it, that there probably never will be a sequel really made me sad
Have a look at some tabletop games: ‘The Others: Seven Sins’ and ‘Cthulhu: Death May Die’ where upgrades can be obtained by taking corruption/madness in the game which will bring you closer to death. Would be fun for any tactics/strategy games.
Transistor does a great job meshing its upgrades and narrative. The way it does it also binds advancement to progressing through its linear narrative, which certainly wouldnt work with all games, but works incredibly well for what it's doing. Then theres also a narrative bonus, where the more you use a skill, the more lore you unlock related to its origins-- which incentivizes varied gameplay through narrative, which I found super cool.
One of the reasons I love games like Gothic. Not only you need to gather experience but you had to find someone able to teach u certain skills. And on top of that they want something in return like gold, a favor or you have to be part of their faction.
Not that I dislike the crazyness of a game like Path of Exile, but I love that for a different kind of reason. Also not every game needs progress in some kind of level or unlock bar... RIP arena shooter.
I am currently designing a Metroidvania with a branch-out story where the skill-tree doubles as the "decision-log" and your build reflects the branch you follow the story to, each towards a very different ending. I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day, but I definitely nodded my head all along this video cause it's what I was really trying to challenge.
Bully did this excellently from crafting stinkbombs and itching powder in chemistry class, learning to apologies for more severe school violations via english class and collecting transistors to give to the homeless vet who lives somewhere on campus so he can call the mothership in exchange for fighting lessons.
it all makes sense.
I really, really liked this, it got me thinking about ways to make getting stronger more immersive. The best game I can think of with this is pokemon, level up, then randomly you get a new move. But the hidden mechanics also promote breeding and fighting certain wild Pokémon in order to have the iv and ev the way you want them
Canis Canem Edit/Bully has you collecting transistor radios in order to unlock new combat combos, in which you learn in a tutorial upon returning with a radio. And you learn/get other skill/upgrades from lessons at school.
Prey also has an upgrade system that is tied directly to the narrative/gameplay. You have to acquire materials from enemies and recycle those materials to craft neural mods that remap the brain to learn new skills which is part of the plot
Something I loved about Outer Wilds (other than everything) was how there are no skill trees or points or power ups, but there are still areas of the game where you can't proceed until you learn how to get past them. You always had the ability, just not the knowledge. That also kinda allows for different learning styles too -- some players want to find the instructions, some just wanna brute force thru trial and error and observation :P
I think for a typical rpg I would seperate skills from stats such that your core stats (str, dex, int etc) are gained normally through xp progression, but skills have to be aquired from the world around you as you explore, fight, read books, or meet a trainer who teaches you a particular skill. However, in order to equip a skill you must have the required core stats for it. So if you meet a thief trainer who teaches you lockpicking, it'll be added to your skills "library" but before you can use it you must reach its minimum required dex stat.
Great video! One interesting example of this is Jedi fallen order, getting force powers through remembering your training
I've talked about this at length when it comes to one of my favorites: Tactics Ogre, specifically the PSP remake.
On paper, with every battle, you get some points to get new skills, with every class going up in points alongside this. There's a bunch of passives that transfer between them, with 10 slots to use at any given time, and originally, I hated this system. It felt like a "you pressed the get stronger button" situation.
But, then I thought about it more after crap loads of challenge runs, modded runs, streams, etc.
Like everything else in the game, the thing was trying to tell a story through mechanics. With each character, their learned skills and personal stats are always the same, and in time, your leader's unfamiliarity with, say, a Hoplite or Dragon may prevent them from getting any bonus through their class levels, but what classes they've trained as before have already raised their personal strengths, they may we'll have skills they can't even unlock as that class yet, but it was all meant to be an absurdly confusing way to show what each character has been through (loss and struggle is kind of the theme of the series).
Granted, this also means that the game is comically easy to cheese once you know the tricks the second or 40th go around, but dang it, they really tried on that one!
A game like that I can think of is Okami in which when you'd learn a new combat skills you'd learn how to do them in a training dojo and when you learned a new drawing way it would allow you to change the world and such. What a lovely game
Persona 5 has great writing for it's upgrade systems, with the gallows and fusion and itemization, etc
I've always found Mega Man Zero's Cyber-Elves to be a cool example of an upgrade system.
Essentially, your upgrades are sentient programs in whose power Zero can tap. Most are one-time uses, but the pernanent ones require you to feed them E-Crystals (the currency) to raise them up and their abilities. The caveyat is that once you use them, they actually die and the game punishes you by docking you points at the end of the next mission (one-time use Elves) or all of them (upgrade Elves).
What makes it great is that their inclusion accomplishes so much for the series; they are one of the ways in which MMZ's darker tone is established and the themes are reinforced.
You are a long-forgotten legend who woke up in a world that has been devastated by many wars and it's your goal to prove that legends never die through your strength and willpower. Letting some Elves die for your benefit diminishes that goal - you can still prove your myths, but you took an easy way out, sacrificing lives along the way, to get to that point (also displaying MMZ's theme of futility of war) - hence docked score.
It's also a nice way to allow for more accessibility for newer players. MMZ is hard, and it knows it, so Cyber-Elves are a solution for players struggling with the difficulty to have a more pleasant time. At the same time, they are also given a constant reminder that the games want you to git gud by the fact that they're missing out on content like EX Skills (new moves obtained by getting high ranks) if they don't try engaging with the game in a more risky manner.
MMZ in general has a lot of neat examples of storytelling.
Prototype is another game that leans in a similar direction. With the upgrades being justified as Mercer consuming Blackwatch and Infected, with both factions desperately churn out new countermeasures to stop his rampage before panicking and changing their tactics as the game progresses. (Mercer can shapeshift, so Blackwatch deploys drones to sniff him out, player gains access to helicopters, the Infected send out tentacles that can shoot them out of the air). While not anything too challenging, it's actually pretty neat how Radical made the upgrade system and enemy types play such a major role in the story and how the villains react. As opposed to the usual open world fair of "slightly bigger grunt that is a damage sponge" or "find x number of doorknobs to instantly gain 0.1 extra health".
If you haven't you need to play Outward its progress feels so real to me the way I have to plan to just get to one the next area and back home was such a different thing for me in a game and you dont die in Outward.. unless you playing on the hardcore mod then each defeat could be you last,but defeat felt so bad waking up in a cell or somewhere random and trying to find you why back home or get back to state that you could try to keep going forward was just such a unique and fun experience.
The Mad Max game offers mechanics like this.
Offense/Defense upgrades to both Max and his car give visible changes to how they look. Max starts off with a thin shirt, but slowly builds up his defense by getting thicker jackets with more padding. His punches become deadlier as more sharp objects he glues to his gloves.
The car gets more protective bars and wheels get spikier the more you increase those stats.
Now, this doesn't explain his encounters with Frigga the mystical desert wanderer only Max can see -- who offers health upgrades and the ability for his car to magically consume less gas -- but I guess they couldn't find game-related explanations for everything.
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Kingdom Come Deliverance's upgrade system as it is tied into the story as a whole. At the beginning of the game your skills are null, you can't even read and can barely swing a sword properly, but with enough practice in those areas, e.g if you want to become a master with the sword, you're gonna have to use the sword or if you want to be good at sneaking around, lockpicking and stealing everything that's not glued down, you are gonna have to do those things repeatedly. It really brought me closer to Henry as a character where I felt I grew along with him on his journey throughout the story.
Metroidvanias tend to also award you with upgrades that are actually learned by the character. As example, in Hollow Knight this comes in three forms. You have the abilities that are taught to you, upgrades that are found and slotted in, similarly to NieR:Automata's chips, and upgrades that are found laying around. The way these upgrades work is integrated into the story itself.
This is kinda funny, because I only within the last couple weeks found Mega Man Zero (and Zero 2) actually had a more integrated upgrade system. You get new skills by using individual weapons, but it turns out your next upgrade is actually based on which moves your using. So you get the aerial spinning attack if you jump attack more, the dashing rolling attack if you dash attack.
great video, and also, bonus points for nier footage!
Yakuza Kiwami did this for one of it's skill trees. The Dragon of Dojima.
While the other three trees are gain experience, spend experience, this one requires you to fight Majima a whole bunch for 80% of the tree, the more you fight Majima, the more you remember old fighting skills.
You talk to Komaki for the last little bit, where he requires you to fight in an underground battle ring and win so many fights to buy his artwork and then he'll teach you another move that you then have to execute flawlessly a few times before then having to get in a fight and win that as well. And the underground battle store has so many other prizes worth buying with the prize points instead so you have to choose or keep slogging. And the underground battle fights keep getting harder for the fights that offer more points, which forces you to either play perfectly or keep grinding forever or just come back after you've leveled the other trees quite a bit. I like it a lot
It was the first thing I thought of when you started this
In daemon ex machina upgrades appear on your character as cybernetic augmentations.
I really like the way Piranha Bytes' games handle xp. You gain experience by doing the usual RPG stuff but you can only really learn new skills by looking for a teacher. Then you have to pay that teacher as well.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance has one of the most integrated "upgrade" systems I've ever seen.
I think there's something to be said for the number of upgrades in a game as well: I'm reminded of Bastion, which only had like... what, 3 or 4 upgrades for each weapon? there were specific collectables for each weapon ('something sharp' for a sword, 'something pointy' for a spear, 'something greasy' for a gun, etc.), and there was a strictly limited number of each one placed across the entire game.
You couldn't go grind for upgrades over and over and completely kit out your weapons; you got ONE collectible, brought it back to your workshop, and picked ONE upgrade to give it, and you only got to do that 3 times in the game. It actually felt like you were spending a precious, limited resource, and you had to make the right choice for what to enhance and what to leave behind because you don't get to just go find more of the materials you're using to modify your weapon: these are rare and precious materials and you can't afford to waste them because the world has fallen apart and you're scavenging the remains.
On the flipside, Hades by the same developers, has a completely opposite approach, with a meta currency being trickled to you throughout runs, and a board of upgrades you can pump those numbers into a little at a time, with an absolutely insane number of little increases you can steadily tick up between runs. Most of them feel completely inconsequential, but when they steadily stack up they begin to completely morph how you play into something completely different. You don't even notice how much they change your character until you do challenge runs that limit how many upgrade points you can spend before a run, and suddenly you feel completely hamstrung.
In the same way Bastion's few but massively impactful upgrades enhances the post-apocalyptic scavenger feeling, the upgrades in Hades enhance the sense of slow, steady, constant progress, of getting just that *little* bit better each time, slowly layering on tiny improvement on top of tiny improvement, until you become barely recognizable as the same scrawny weakling who started out on an impossible task, determined to keep going and keep getting better until he could accomplish something nobody thought he could.
persona 5 has a good system where spending time with and increasing your relationship with confidants unlock new abilities, either as them teaching you a skill that you adapt for use in the metaverse or improving relationship with a teammate so they become more helpful to you in combat or use their own talants to aid you outside of combat as well
Thinking about Deus Ex watching this one. It's upgrades were modules to plug into your android body. All permanent changes, closing off other routes. Fit into both the game's message and its reality.
The upgrade tree isn't very deep but I think Dishonored did a good job in tying the abilities and unlocks to the story and theme - you get tech upgrades by finding or purchasing blueprints for the scientist to study. You get magic upgrades by making deals with The Outsider, and your choices affect other thematic elements like the morality system.
The only thing with sleeping dogs was it was virtually impossible to max out your bad guy rank unless you specifically go into the game with the knowledge of the suit that gave you extra points into that. There was only just enough points to do it if you did have the knowledge.
Sleeping Dogs isn't even underrated, pretty much everyone I've ever talked to about it has loved it. It's just sadly obscure.
Also, one interesting upgrade system was the Dragon style developing over the course of Yakuza Kiwami, through fights with Majima.
Obscure means not many have played it, which means not many have rated it, which means it is underrated.
You should cover EYE Divine Cybermancy; I'd love to see your take on it. From the upgrade systems (plural) to the wild fever dream campaign I think there's a lot of material to talk about a game design philosophy that's all too uncommon.
Hands down it's my favorite cyborg simulator.
What a rad video. Great job.
KOTOR 2 had an actual in universe explanation on why you keep getting stronger the farther you get into the game.
I'm playing Outward, an open world RPG where you can only get new skills by finding trainers and paying them to train you. Other games have also done this of course, but that's another really good system that adds context to the upgrades.
I quite like systems where you have to kill certain ennemies/bosses to get their abilities too, like in the original Guild Wars or to an extent even The Witcher 3 with the Mutagen Decoctions. Or... Kirby?
Another Great game that ties it progress system to its story is "The Lone Dark" a survival game where your trying to live in the post apocalypse winter fallout(At least I think so from what I know of the setting of the game). How the upgrade system works is its to put simply action specific, The more you make camp fires the higher your skill level gets in making fires, the more times you do repairs on your clothing the better your character is at doing clothing repairs, and many more if you do this it gets better upgrades in the game. So you might be asking "How does this upgrading system tie into the story of the game" the goal of "The Lone Dark" is to survive as long as possible and your character getting better at the tasks they do to survive. The act of upgrading your character in specific skills improving over time is the story of the game and their fight for survival in this devastated future.
Note I actually have not played the Lone Dark myself I've only watch people play the game. But I think I've seen enough of the game to bring it up as an example. Relating to this video.
Solid vid, careful not to overdo it with the ads, I get that's where the money comes from but less ads might mean more views and that also means more money. I'm surprised your channel is not bigger.
I personally like the crafting system of a combination of Minecraft and Subnautica with a build system of Banjo Kazooie Nuts Bolts. Find what you need, find recipe/blueprints to build, then build and enjoy! For extra engagement, I’d add QTEs to either speed up the build as minigame, and/or overcome randomized snags in building.
I think the best upgrade systems ever created are in Gothic 1 and Kingdome Come Deliverence.
Gothic 1
- at the start of the game you donˇt know how to fight - your are limited as to on how many attacks you can do, but once you find a teacher and learn how to use for example - one handed weapons - the teacher will explain to the character on how to fight and now you are better at fighting - you are faster, stronger, animations change
- The game still uses the same system - where you gain atribute points after gaining new level but how they represent the character learning is completely different and new (now old)
Kingdom Come Deliverance
- The game has deep upgrade system.
For example
- Strenght - you want bigger strenght ? - Fight, carry more than you can in your inventory, wear heavier armor, use heavy weapons, use shield
- Hunting - want to get better at hunting ? - You have to hunt, or read books
- Agility - run, use bow, jump,
- Horse riding - you want to be able to stay longer on your horse or to gallop longer ? - ride a horse, learn from characters
- Lockpicking - pick locks, read books, learn from other characters
- Talking - talk with characters, read books
- What these games do is they show that experience points ( XP/EXP ) are "real" thing in the game as the character gains experience through your journey and gets better at it.
He learns and you learn.
This is pointing out probably the main issue I've had with modern games for a while now. There's only really been a couple of modern games that really gave me an experience like my childhood when I was playing through FF7 for the first time.
Metal Gear Rising (great immersion, among other things), Dark Souls (same), and NieR: Automata (my favorite script in any medium ever, and the storyline gameplay integration is top notch).
I play a lot of fighting games these days because you are directly in the pilot seat, the tech tree is in your hands. Your character can do more shit because you put in the work, you can move better because you practiced, your character practiced. The storylines always SUCK but they don't need to be good when the immersion can be so strong. I think that's why people have been moving more and more towards multiplayer games in fact, there just isn't an effort from the studios to provide an immersive experience, so people make it for themselves.
Those are all japanese games; I don't think that's a coincidence.
@@todesziege I mean i love tons of western games, I guess they just don't leave as much of an impact as some of the games I listed.
The good western games I always play seem to serve a very good "purpose" though without necessarily providing an intimate experience. Warcraft 3 and Civ are both great strategy games, roller coaster tycoon is probably one of the best sims in the world, and counter strike was probably the best competitive experience I had growing up.
Granted, the Tomb Raider reboot games are a weird mash of elements that are often less than the sum of their parts, but I liked the attempt, starting in Rise, to connect certain skills to an intra-diegetic logic. Yes, the odd, abstract "trade in generic experience points to learn how to X" system is still there. But as a reward for exploring tombs, Lara also finds ancient codices from which she learns new skills, often semi-logically connected to the game world (e.g., from an ancient text in a mine, she learns to gather a new mineral resources; from a medical treatise in an ancient infirmary, she learns how to heal herself better). Like a lot of things in those games, it's sort of a good idea but half-baked, but I thought it was worth a mention as an example of trying to consciously tie learning skills to the game world.
Anyone know what the game @3:39 was? It looked really cool!
A Short Hike, one of the best games of last year as far as I'm concerned!
@@WritingOnGames Thanks!
As far as games that use this idea goes, I like Horizon Zero Dawn's cauldrons mechanic, in that you have to actively seek out those locations and puzzle your way through the caves as well as have a boss fight just to get the upgrade.
Also, I'm shocked you didn't touch on where upgrade trees in general come from, Table Top Role Playing Games. Some people have home brewed a response to your dilemma by forcing players to find people to teach them their new skills, and forcing down time to master them.
Another good example of this is Kenshi. You upgrade your health and toughness by getting beat up, your strength by carrying heavy things, and your speed by running fast. It's all in-world and provides a uniquely immersive experience.
I'm always a sucker for emergent leveling like this. As a little aesthetic bonus, I'd love it if a game subtly adjusted your build to match, making you bulkier for Strength and Toughness, leaner for Dexterity, etc. That way, you'd start to see a character's history on their skin, and ideally you'd see a spicy variety of body types less explored by games which let you pick and choose your look. (For all the big, cartoony powers in City of Heroes, there really was something about noticing the height and width differences between player characters)
Would definitely include Disco Elysium in the list of brilliant upgrade systems - in how you begin the improvement of a skill tree through simple interaction with the world, the bizarre modifiers, and then the end to the game that in some ways renders much of it inconsequential due to the (whisper it) historical materialist worldview the devs hold themselves
What's that game at 3:39?
It's called "A Short Hike"
@@SpaghettiBounce Thanks!
Okami's upgrade system is pretty solid, as it's based around the protagonist directly learning the skills and becoming more powerful via the faith of others, which matches the narrative beautifully.
Xenogears' "deathblows" is an interesting example of this, while yes deathblows are locked behind levels you still need to do the button combination in combat dozens of times before you learn a deathblow.
Experience points is the same analogy to knowledge as money is to time. It doesn't have to be something specific any more then your time spent filling out a spreadsheet or cooking strangers good has something to do with your hobbies expanding.
Finally! It’s about time I saw other people talking about this.
The State of Decay games. Running for example drains stamina but will level up to give you more stamina and drain it slower as it levels. Fighting shooting and crafting work similarly. Underrated system imho.
Hollow knight does this.
Things you use exist within the world and not only grant you abilities but they grant your enemies powers too!
Masks are not just another life, but your own mask
The Assassin's Creed leveling system made so much more sense in the earlier games. You would just unlock new devices or skills to use your devices as you progressed. If you didn't do a certain scene, you wouldn't have that ability yet.
I also quite liked the system in Breath of the Wild, since you don't actually learn anything. Playing as Link, who has been struck by a hard case of amnesia, even though his mind does not remember how to fight, his body arguably does. And even more so (spoilers) the only powers that are gained through the game are from the four divine beasts, which serve more as memoirs of his former friends, as opposed to something gained through xp
How come he didn't mention Metroid or other ability based game like it at all?
Whats the spacey game at 0:20?
Another great video!
Great video! I will definitely look into having more in world reasons for skills in my game.
I thought maybe I could throw a player in a game and have them learn how to do stuff there self like attacking while dodging, heck even dodging and blocking attacks.
I think letting them learn for themselves might give a more rewarding feeling when learning a new combination of attacking dodging and blocking.
I'm surprised you didn't mention undertale. Seeing the way that it discards the normal XP system
The Soulsborne series (and most other Soulslikes) has a reasonably coherent upgrade system. The pc utilises a physical substance (such as souls) to enhance their natural abilities (strength, dexterity etc) and equipment is enhanced through utilising special materials, whilst skills are tied to equipment and spells are learned.
Makes me think of Hollow Knight. You don’t level up, but you do end up getting stronger through items that you find and equip. Not just random items either; they’re things that would make sense in a world of bugs. Same with Metroid’s upgrade systems too. Actually, Metroidvanias in general probably handle character upgrades the best within their own context
I really like Hollowknight, where most of the upgrades are just things you find around, or have to purchase from merchants. It's not just numbers going up :)
I may be biased because I just started the game, but I think that dark souls does this at least to some degree. Souls aren't necessarily physical objects in the game, but you can lose them on death and they make a lot more sense in the story/world than a random xp bar. I started and have only played through dark souls 3 currently (please don't kill me I know I should have started on the 1st one), but even with that the firekeeper telling you that you use the souls to improve your own power makes sense and is really cool.
You say "anime power rangers" as if power rangers didn't come from Japan in the first place 😂
Yeah, but these Power Rangers are like... *really* anime.
Except Power Rangers is live action, not anime... Unless you think everything that comes from Japan is anime? Do you buy sushi thinking you're about to eat some anime? Do you think every game that comes from Japan is anime?
@@yashwinning dang dude, chill
Deus ex HR's upgrade system is pretty well integrated
When you fast travel in Nier Automata, your physical body apparently gets destroyed with your consciousness being sent to a new body at another station. If that other station can recreate your plug in chips, then why can't they be recreated when you die in battle?
Division 2 got this upgrade thing better than most ubisoft rpg systems
constant threat on control points and supplies
with enemies constantly attacking
sure is hella fun
Kingdom Come: Deliverance? You litterally start out as harmless as a kitten who cant even swong a sword correct and only through entering a combat training area for (real) hours will you be able to sustain outside of the city walls.
There was this indie game I played a long time ago that subverted the upgrade system in an interesting way. Upgrading required communing with what seemed to be a divine being. At the end of the game though you discover it's really a demon and you've been unknowingly corrupting yourself by taking them. The only way attain the good ending was to go through it at your base level. There are plenty of games where deception is tied to the narrative but I don't think I've played any other one that has it tied to optional character progression as well. Closest comparison is Shadow of the Colossus but those aren't optional.
That sounds like an interesting concept, what's the game called? Prey 2017 springs to mind with the neuromods and how you eventually discover that they're made out of the Typhon.
@@rickimaru915 I can't recall the name. It must have been at least a decade since I played it. I remember it was something generic like "Hero Game" or something. The game was admittedly not very good but that element kinda stuck with me.
Also thanks for reminding me about Prey 2017. I still need to play it
This is why I'm excited for Cyberpunk 2077, assuming it is going to be as we have seen/been told, the upgrades that you get will have an effect on story and game. Guess we'll just have to see.
The gothic Series has a cool system. when you level up you get 10 level points. they are useless and cant be spend on their own. instead you have to talk to people in the world to teach you. sometimes they demand payment for their services, or certain favors before they teach you. you Use these points for your stats and skills. trade in your points at the smith to get more strength, become the apprentice of the hunter to learn how to skin animals (but he wont teach you if you apprentice under the smith), convince the town locksmith that you're trustworthy before he teaches you how to pick locks. These teachers have limits, and cant teach you beyond their own abilities. later on you have to find better masters to teach you, and some skills are locked behind joining a faction.