An Idea that Substitutes EXP, but does not get rid of grinding

[Seacliff]

So I'm creating a game that involves many actors in the party at a time (though only four will be in battle at a time). But I don't want the player playing my game feel like he has to level them all up, or have to grind certain characters just so they could use them to get pass a boss. Or even having a character Ideal for a long time, but still getting all the EXP the active members are.

Basically, I'm trying to find out ways that will allow me to get rid of the EXP meter altogether, but still have it so the player will still have to grind and not breeze through the game.

Two ideas came to mind to have in my game, first was Chrono Cross. In Cross, you only level up when beat certain bosses, but you gain stat points during battle depending on how you fight (More magic you use, the higher your MAG, the more normal attacks you use, the higher your ATK, etc.) I bet after googling and testing for a while I could pull this off with a script. But my game already focuses on dimensional traveling and I don't want it too similar to Cross, though I will do this method if I have nothing left.

The other idea is similar to leveling in the Touhou Fangame, Touhou Labyrinth. Though the game did use EXP, you don't level up once you reach the EXP you need, you have to go to a specific person and trade in your EXP to level up. I could get away with something unique-ish such as this: After battle you get a variable of points, and you can distribute these points to different actors either Via Menu or NPC, once an actor gets distribute enough of these points, they level up. This will make it useful so you don't have to have a character in your party to level them up.

So what do you guys think? Do you have any ideas you like to share that gets rid of the EXP mechanic? Is it a good game play mechanic or not? Let me know below!

 

[whitesphere]

If elemental affinity is big in the game, maybe you could do this:

Attributes are each associated with an Element, such as ATK might be associated with Fire, DEF with Earth.

When you defeat monsters, you get points which move your elemental affinity on the scale.  Based on your elemental affinity, some attributes are higher, others lower.  Maybe a high Fire actor has high ATK and AGI but low DEF. 

Personally, I wouldn't do that, because one big pro of the EXP mechanic is that RPG players are familiar with it.  If you have a custom system, you need to explain it in a good amount of detail, in-game. 

Now, if you want to have grinding, you COULD say the Skills are not automatically learned when you go up in level and you need to find or buy Books (or Masters) which teach the Skill.  When I do this, I make sure the character gets certain Skills on level up, just the biggest or best skills I reserve for this approach.

 

[Seacliff]

@whitesphere

I kinda like that idea, I'll take a look into it. I was planning to have the magic equipable anyways.

And yes, I am aware of the risks of abandoning the exp system is, since it's pretty much universal... but you do bring up a good point,  even if I do have explanation in game, if it get's to long or complex than the player would get bored.

 

[Psyker]

You could have stats tied to weapons, armor, and accessories.

Combined with either having to grind for gold to purchase and items to trade or craft this would give some grind aspect and get rid of exp meter.

 

[hian]

Have all level progression tied to currency. You get currency for fighting, then you go to town and talk to some sort of NPC(say a trainer, a master, or something to that effect) and then level up in exchange for currency. This way you can level up characters you haven't used, by using only your standard party if you want to.


Just make sure that the buying of levels increase in price over time, so that players can't break the system.


If you don't like currency, create a key-item that can be exchanged for levels, or a variable for that matter.


As for how to set it up -


If you don't want to mess around with a lot of event choices, you can make a mock-up map that functions like a menu, where you have one event for each character in your game.


Moving up to one of this and pressing them will give you the option to level the character up if you have the right amount of items, or the variable is high enough.


If you want the amount of items/variables needed to increase, all you have to do is create extra pages that activates once characters reach a certain level, where you then change the item/variable amount.


There you go.


EDIT -


If you want to set it up more like a skill system,


tie everything to save-points, or something that looks like a save-point.


Pushing the save-points gives you the option to travel to the "character level-up map", and exiting takes you back to the save-point (you'll need to use the save coordinates variables for this).

 

[whitesphere]

If you wanted to do something simple, maybe having just one axis --- Light and Dark, for example.  Magic would be categorized as Light, Dark or Neither.  Magic which is Light (healing and perhaps certain classes of damage) gets stronger as you go towards the Light.  Dark magic gets stronger in the reverse case and obviously Light magic gets weaker.

Magic which is Neither is not affected by this alignment.

NOTE:  For story purposes neither Light or Dark is inherently good or evil.  You can have a Knight Templar who supports the Light --- and has no problem murdering millions to bring the Light to the world....

Or a necromancer who uses his/her power to save people FROM death by having people's souls "hold onto" their bodies until their bodies heal (got that from the Dresden Files).

 

[Seacliff]

@Hian

I did consider that before, but after a while, people would relize buying stronger equipment would be more beneficial than paying for levels... though that isn't impossible to balance out.

@whiteshere

Interesting idea, but I think it would work even better if you had both that and the EXP system. Though the story idea of having Light and Dark going both ways is a underused twist.

 

[hian]

@Hian


I did consider that before, but after a while, people would relize buying stronger equipment would be more beneficial than paying for levels... though that isn't impossible to balance out.

Not if you balance it properly. Just vamping your equipment isn't going to help you a lot unless the equipment also provides HP and MP bonuses. After all, stronger equipment exists to balance out your party as you encounter stronger enemies, but if you don't have enough MP to cast your new spells, or enough HP to withstand the new attacks you're still going to die.


But as I said, you don't need to tie it to currency. Just make an item, or a variable and use that instead.