Unlocking Levels

[LightDiviner]

One thing about RPG's that I find interesting, the level up system. Getting stronger by doing battles. But, if you do too much, like grinding, or just getting unlucky with random encounters, your level can sometimes become too why, and parts of the game may become too easy. Which is where my idea comes in, unlocking new level caps. Here is an example.

At the start of a game, your level cap is 10. Pretty decent level for early game. After you defeat a certain boss, you get a message basically saying, "Level Cap Increased!" With it, you can level up to say, 20, giving you better stats, as well as new abilities you can get. That way, your never too powerful for what's ahead, making it so you can't just grind to win. You'll still have to think about how to win battles. If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say the Crystarium system from Final Fantasy XIII, just without branching paths and stuff.

 

[Philosophus Vagus]

It depends on the game largely. For instance, do you need to grind monsters for money and materials to advance your equipment so that grinding still has a purpose, or are you just trying to figure out how to stop players from grinding into godhood? If the former I can see the growing level cap serving an interesting purpose, if the latter then my question would simply be why not remove grinding from the game and make all encounters static so that the only means of overleveling available would be perhaps optional areas, which is what I do personally so that the game relies more on tactics and exploiting weaknesses/covering your own than it does on stats since all players will be relatively the same stat wise at the same point in the game that way and it makes balancing boss encounters and even minor ones a lot more fun and intuitive rather than just playing with all the stats all the time.

Granted your idea accomplishes much of the same thing, my only concern is that unless you allow grinding in other ways (which have similar problems even if it is overequipped rather than overleveled, but also have their own progression roadblocks to keep them in line) then providing continuous encounters that suddenly do not net you anything once you hit the cap until you advance might be a little offputting to some players.

 

[LightDiviner]

It depends on the game largely. For instance, do you need to grind monsters for money and materials to advance your equipment so that grinding still has a purpose, or are you just trying to figure out how to stop players from grinding into godhood? If the former I can see the growing level cap serving an interesting purpose, if the latter then my question would simply be why not remove grinding from the game and make all encounters static so that the only means of overleveling available would be perhaps optional areas, which is what I do personally so that the game relies more on tactics and exploiting weaknesses/covering your own than it does on stats since all players will be relatively the same stat wise at the same point in the game that way and it makes balancing boss encounters and even minor ones a lot more fun and intuitive rather than just playing with all the stats all the time.

Granted your idea accomplishes much of the same thing, my only concern is that unless you allow grinding in other ways (which have similar problems even if it is overequipped rather than overleveled, but also have their own progression roadblocks to keep them in line) then providing continuous encounters that suddenly do not net you anything once you hit the cap until you advance might be a little offputting to some players.

I mean, I'm sure there's been times in RPG's where your suddenly like: "...this is way too easy."

 

[Frogboy]

Two ideas.

1. Area clearing. Even if using random encounters, you can easily store the number of encounters the player has fought in a certain area (or of a certain type of monster). If the player has fought X number in that area or of that monster than they don't appear any longer. You could also just make them run away too making it more trouble than its worth to keep grinding in that spot.

2. Zero XP if monsters are a certain amount weaker than you. Not sure how to actually do this but I'm sure it's possible. Would probably a relatively simple script that takes a note tag to specify the what level the monster starts handing out no XP.

 

[lianderson]

If you´re having this problem with your game, simply lower the EXP normal enemies give, and increase the EXP bosses give. Doing this simple act will alleviate much of this issue while still retaining your grindy players.

 

[mauvebutterfly]

My preference is to have experience gains for monsters scale with level. If you do this well, you can even make it so that every single level requires the same amount of experience, which makes things nice and readable for the player. If every level is 1000 experience, then it's easy to judge your expected level versus the area based on how much experience a monster is giving you.

Another thing you can do is have non-level bonuses be bigger than level bonuses. If your fighter gains 2 attack every level, but each tier of gear adds 20 attack, then players still get the reward of seeing all the numbers going up on level-up, but gear is what is effectively gating your power level. As an added benefit this system would make gear a lot more exciting too, since players would really feel their impact.

If there are important skills that the player needs to know, having a trainer or finding a tome or something that teaches the skill can be another thing to consider. This way players that are over-levelled don't learn powerful spells too early, while players that are under-levelled aren't screwed by not having access to certain key abilities.

You can also tie any of these ideas to your level system by having level requirements, so reading the Tome of Poisons might give you an antidote skill, but you need to be level 5 to read it (or level 5 in a healer class specifically if doing a game where characters can change jobs.) The Sword of Killing Things Dead might have a level requirement of 20 to equip. I'm not personally a fan of this option, but thought it was worth including for consideration.

 

[LightDiviner]

My preference is to have experience gains for monsters scale with level. If you do this well, you can even make it so that every single level requires the same amount of experience, which makes things nice and readable for the player. If every level is 1000 experience, then it's easy to judge your expected level versus the area based on how much experience a monster is giving you.

Another thing you can do is have non-level bonuses be bigger than level bonuses. If your fighter gains 2 attack every level, but each tier of gear adds 20 attack, then players still get the reward of seeing all the numbers going up on level-up, but gear is what is effectively gating your power level. As an added benefit this system would make gear a lot more exciting too, since players would really feel their impact.

If there are important skills that the player needs to know, having a trainer or finding a tome or something that teaches the skill can be another thing to consider. This way players that are over-levelled don't learn powerful spells too early, while players that are under-levelled aren't screwed by not having access to certain key abilities.

You can also tie any of these ideas to your level system by having level requirements, so reading the Tome of Poisons might give you an antidote skill, but you need to be level 5 to read it (or level 5 in a healer class specifically if doing a game where characters can change jobs.) The Sword of Killing Things Dead might have a level requirement of 20 to equip. I'm not personally a fan of this option, but thought it was worth including for consideration.

Oh that reminds me, is there anyway to have an equipable accessory, or ability that makes it so a character gains no EXP?

 

[.//SnowAlias]

Oh that reminds me, is there anyway to have an equipable accessory, or ability that makes it so a character gains no EXP?

I think you can add the Experience Sp-Parameter in the Traits and set it to 0.

 

[Basileus]

I'm not sold on the idea of level tiers unless there is a greater system at work. Having your level capped "just because" until you progress the story really sucks even if there is a lore reason thrown in to attempt to justify it. It's also generally a bad idea to build entire systems just to restrict players from level grinding. This is because there are 2 kinds of players that level grind:

1. Delayed Gratification Seekers: These players raise their levels higher than an area requires because they enjoy the feeling of easily smashing a boss that is supposed to be hard and are willing to put in the unnecessary investment to have their fun. Restricting these players from being able to out-level enemies directly kills their fun.
2. Compulsive Grinders: These players feel compelled to raise their level for a variety of reasons. It could happen because they just like to explore a lot and accumulate too much exp from random encounters. It could happen because the UI shows them how close they are to getting another level and they feel pressured to get "just one more". It could be because they have a poor sense of game balance and think they need to grind extra levels because they didn't figure out the tactical way to beat a boss. These are the players that complain about grinding and call for restrictions.

"Anti-Grinding" features fail far more than they succeed. My go-to examples for this are Final Fantasy VIII and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

In FFVIII, enemies level to scale roughly with the player as a deterrent to simply grinding your way to victory. The new Guardian Force system and Junction mechanic were intended to replace simple leveling as the main way a player gained combat power. By linking spells to your stats the player could give their party members a large stat boost that would allow the player to out-stat their level-scaled enemies. This system DID succeed in making grinding irrelevant...by making something even more broken.

Now that killing enemies and gaining exp was a direct liability, it encouraged players to simply not fight at all. By simply running away from every fight the player could keep a super low level so that all enemies were extremely weak, then make up for their low level by Junctioning spells to their HP and ATK to stomp everything with no effort. The Draw mechanic to pull spells from enemies only made this worse. Since spells were now consumable (you could have up to 100 of a given spell and your count depleted with each cast) and would lower your stats if cast, the best strategy was to just not fight enemies and draw one of their spells until you hit 100 then run away or use the Card command since it granted no exp. It was very effective in making grinding useless but the devs never considered how horrible the new optimal gameplay loop was.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion also used enemy scaling to deter level grinding and is now infamous for how terribly it was handled. Due to the extreme simplicity of the Elders Scrolls combat system, making an enemy more difficult pretty much amounts to giving it more Health and more damage. And the easiest way to do this was to just keep giving enemies better and better gear. It made enemies more deadly and take longer to defeat, sure, but also left large quantities of extremely valuable loot. This led to combat that was dull due to the simplicity, tedious due to the enemy stats, and needlessly profitable such that players would get more money than they could ever spend and loot itself lost all value as a reward.

By making the high-level gameplay tiresome the devs effectively killed off level grinding and once again replaced it with something even worse. The optimal strategy was to place only skills you DIDN'T intend to use in the "Major" skill slots so the player would never level unless they went out of their way to do so. This left the player free to use their "Minor" skills as much as they wanted since ranking those skills didn't count toward increasing character level. And thus level 1 players could have 100 in all of their main skills and destroy anything the game threw at them and did so because just leveling normally had no upside anymore.


Don't be like these guys and waste time on systems that don't even enhance the gameplay experience. If play-testers are reporting that exp gain is too high and they level too fast just by normal gameplay, then you probably are giving too much exp from normal combat. If over-leveling only happens as a direct resulting of choosing to grind, then you have no reason to stop it.

But from my experience, if your combat system is broken in half just by gaining some extra levels then the problem isn't your exp gain...the problem is your combat system.

A lot of RPGs are vulnerable to this because many rely too much on numbers-based combat. If gaining some stat points makes you go from 0 to God then you have a problem. Even in games where all stats and skills are gained through exp that is acquired from defeating enemies in combat it is possible to make content that is challenging and requires smart decision-making to succeed. Your characters need to have more than just the basic Attack command, and their skills need to be more than just a replacer for their Attack command. Skills should have situational uses, possibly downsides that need to be managed, maybe even cooldowns or interesting requirements to use like needing to be in a certain State or only working on enemies with a certain status effect.

Even a simple Type system like in Pokémon can make a huge difference. Having a big bad level 100 Dragonite means nothing if I have a level 65 Lapras with Ice Beam. Just going by numbers your Dragonite should crush me, but having that weakness to Ice-type attacks means that I can easily overcome the stat barrier by playing smart. And that's just a super simple example.

Some of the harder content in Fate/Grand Order can be downright mean and requires strategy to stand any chance of victory. In the beginning it's easy to power your way through by getting a 4 or 5 star unit and just leveling them up a lot. But all that gives you is raw stats and even leveling your skills only increases their numbers slightly. The challenge bosses require thoughtful team compositions, with what kinds of abilities a unit brings to the table often out-weighing their raw numbers. Different challenges are designed to screw over different team compositions, so one challenge may call for a glass cannon team to DPS the boss down in 3 turns while another challenge may require strong healers to form a team that can stall long enough to chip the boss down. By paying attention to what players are using a relying on the studio can make challenges tailored specifically to the current meta to get players to break out units they may not have considered before. Pay attention to your play-testers; if they are relying on a specific skill or combo to crush so hard, consider making enemies and quests designed to counter those strategies to force them to look at other options.


If you are hard set on a level cap, then I recommend you look into Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The game is built on a D20 system and actually has a level cap of 20 for the whole game. This turns out pretty effective since it makes each level up very special and lets each level provide significant power (you can get stat points, skill points, and points for new Force powers all at once). One of the reasons this works is because the total amount of exp in the game is limited so it encourages the player to explore around and get every last point. But it also requires the game to be very rigid in how much you are allowed to level at any given point so it does remove some player agency. With a good enough skill system this could still work for you though.

 

[LightDiviner]

I'm not sold on the idea of level tiers unless there is a greater system at work. Having your level capped "just because" until you progress the story really sucks even if there is a lore reason thrown in to attempt to justify it. It's also generally a bad idea to build entire systems just to restrict players from level grinding. This is because there are 2 kinds of players that level grind:

1. Delayed Gratification Seekers: These players raise their levels higher than an area requires because they enjoy the feeling of easily smashing a boss that is supposed to be hard and are willing to put in the unnecessary investment to have their fun. Restricting these players from being able to out-level enemies directly kills their fun.
2. Compulsive Grinders: These players feel compelled to raise their level for a variety of reasons. It could happen because they just like to explore a lot and accumulate too much exp from random encounters. It could happen because the UI shows them how close they are to getting another level and they feel pressured to get "just one more". It could be because they have a poor sense of game balance and think they need to grind extra levels because they didn't figure out the tactical way to beat a boss. These are the players that complain about grinding and call for restrictions.

"Anti-Grinding" features fail far more than they succeed. My go-to examples for this are Final Fantasy VIII and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

In FFVIII, enemies level to scale roughly with the player as a deterrent to simply grinding your way to victory. The new Guardian Force system and Junction mechanic were intended to replace simple leveling as the main way a player gained combat power. By linking spells to your stats the player could give their party members a large stat boost that would allow the player to out-stat their level-scaled enemies. This system DID succeed in making grinding irrelevant...by making something even more broken.

Now that killing enemies and gaining exp was a direct liability, it encouraged players to simply not fight at all. By simply running away from every fight the player could keep a super low level so that all enemies were extremely weak, then make up for their low level by Junctioning spells to their HP and ATK to stomp everything with no effort. The Draw mechanic to pull spells from enemies only made this worse. Since spells were now consumable (you could have up to 100 of a given spell and your count depleted with each cast) and would lower your stats if cast, the best strategy was to just not fight enemies and draw one of their spells until you hit 100 then run away or use the Card command since it granted no exp. It was very effective in making grinding useless but the devs never considered how horrible the new optimal gameplay loop was.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion also used enemy scaling to deter level grinding and is now infamous for how terribly it was handled. Due to the extreme simplicity of the Elders Scrolls combat system, making an enemy more difficult pretty much amounts to giving it more Health and more damage. And the easiest way to do this was to just keep giving enemies better and better gear. It made enemies more deadly and take longer to defeat, sure, but also left large quantities of extremely valuable loot. This led to combat that was dull due to the simplicity, tedious due to the enemy stats, and needlessly profitable such that players would get more money than they could ever spend and loot itself lost all value as a reward.

By making the high-level gameplay tiresome the devs effectively killed off level grinding and once again replaced it with something even worse. The optimal strategy was to place only skills you DIDN'T intend to use in the "Major" skill slots so the player would never level unless they went out of their way to do so. This left the player free to use their "Minor" skills as much as they wanted since ranking those skills didn't count toward increasing character level. And thus level 1 players could have 100 in all of their main skills and destroy anything the game threw at them and did so because just leveling normally had no upside anymore.


Don't be like these guys and waste time on systems that don't even enhance the gameplay experience. If play-testers are reporting that exp gain is too high and they level too fast just by normal gameplay, then you probably are giving too much exp from normal combat. If over-leveling only happens as a direct resulting of choosing to grind, then you have no reason to stop it.

But from my experience, if your combat system is broken in half just by gaining some extra levels then the problem isn't your exp gain...the problem is your combat system.

A lot of RPGs are vulnerable to this because many rely too much on numbers-based combat. If gaining some stat points makes you go from 0 to God then you have a problem. Even in games where all stats and skills are gained through exp that is acquired from defeating enemies in combat it is possible to make content that is challenging and requires smart decision-making to succeed. Your characters need to have more than just the basic Attack command, and their skills need to be more than just a replacer for their Attack command. Skills should have situational uses, possibly downsides that need to be managed, maybe even cooldowns or interesting requirements to use like needing to be in a certain State or only working on enemies with a certain status effect.

Even a simple Type system like in Pokémon can make a huge difference. Having a big bad level 100 Dragonite means nothing if I have a level 65 Lapras with Ice Beam. Just going by numbers your Dragonite should crush me, but having that weakness to Ice-type attacks means that I can easily overcome the stat barrier by playing smart. And that's just a super simple example.

Some of the harder content in Fate/Grand Order can be downright mean and requires strategy to stand any chance of victory. In the beginning it's easy to power your way through by getting a 4 or 5 star unit and just leveling them up a lot. But all that gives you is raw stats and even leveling your skills only increases their numbers slightly. The challenge bosses require thoughtful team compositions, with what kinds of abilities a unit brings to the table often out-weighing their raw numbers. Different challenges are designed to screw over different team compositions, so one challenge may call for a glass cannon team to DPS the boss down in 3 turns while another challenge may require strong healers to form a team that can stall long enough to chip the boss down. By paying attention to what players are using a relying on the studio can make challenges tailored specifically to the current meta to get players to break out units they may not have considered before. Pay attention to your play-testers; if they are relying on a specific skill or combo to crush so hard, consider making enemies and quests designed to counter those strategies to force them to look at other options.


If you are hard set on a level cap, then I recommend you look into Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The game is built on a D20 system and actually has a level cap of 20 for the whole game. This turns out pretty effective since it makes each level up very special and lets each level provide significant power (you can get stat points, skill points, and points for new Force powers all at once). One of the reasons this works is because the total amount of exp in the game is limited so it encourages the player to explore around and get every last point. But it also requires the game to be very rigid in how much you are allowed to level at any given point so it does remove some player agency. With a good enough skill system this could still work for you though.

I get what your saying. Just one of the many ideas I have had. And yeah...those sound bad. ._. I can think of a lore reason though. Say this, the main protagonist is an ancient warrior has lost their memories. They don't know their true pottential. As they go through the game beating bosses, they slowly remember things they lost, thus allowing them to keep growing and unlocking that hidden power they had.

 

[Basileus]

@LightDiviner

It's been done. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and a few other games have used "regaining lost memories" as a justification for the experience system. I wouldn't use it as the basis for a level cap system since it's already been used for general experience systems so players may question why it's different in your game. I do like the idea of characters unlocking skills through plot events though, especially if the scenes have lots of character development or backstory.

It might be a better idea to make the combat system based more on skills instead of the raw stats gained from levels, then restrict those skills to certain points of the story. Then even if a player grinds out a bunch of levels it shouldn't give too much of an advantage. A fight might get a bit easier with some more stats but you can probably balance the fight to still be plenty hard since you can be certain the player won't get the abilities that would make the boss a pushover.

Or to put it another way - in a game like Final Fantasy you can usually just grind out levels to turn Fire into Fira to do more damage. But if Fira could only be learned by a story event or sidequest, then the player would only get a stronger basic Attack command. This lets you design a boss that resists physical attacks to ease the player into learning tactics revolving around spells without risking the player learning spells too powerful for that boss to handle or just basic Attacking him to death. By making the optimal strategy the one less focused on raw stats and more focused on skills they already have most players would avoid grinding since the extra work for less payoff makes it no longer optimal to do so.

Just a thought. Hopefully it helps give you some ideas.

 

[LightDiviner]

@LightDiviner

It's been done. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and a few other games have used "regaining lost memories" as a justification for the experience system. I wouldn't use it as the basis for a level cap system since it's already been used for general experience systems so players may question why it's different in your game. I do like the idea of characters unlocking skills through plot events though, especially if the scenes have lots of character development or backstory.

It might be a better idea to make the combat system based more on skills instead of the raw stats gained from levels, then restrict those skills to certain points of the story. Then even if a player grinds out a bunch of levels it shouldn't give too much of an advantage. A fight might get a bit easier with some more stats but you can probably balance the fight to still be plenty hard since you can be certain the player won't get the abilities that would make the boss a pushover.

Or to put it another way - in a game like Final Fantasy you can usually just grind out levels to turn Fire into Fira to do more damage. But if Fira could only be learned by a story event or sidequest, then the player would only get a stronger basic Attack command. This lets you design a boss that resists physical attacks to ease the player into learning tactics revolving around spells without risking the player learning spells too powerful for that boss to handle or just basic Attacking him to death. By making the optimal strategy the one less focused on raw stats and more focused on skills they already have most players would avoid grinding since the extra work for less payoff makes it no longer optimal to do so.

Just a thought. Hopefully it helps give you some ideas.

That sounds nice. I've been getting my own idea for learning, but it's somewhat complicated, and I doubt it could be done. You ever heard of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance?

 

[Basileus]

@LightDiviner

Heard of it, yeah, but never played it. I think that uses the Job System so you gain AP after battle and use that to level up different classes ("Jobs") and gain new abilities as you advance in Job Levels. At least that's how FF games usually use the Job System.

 

[LightDiviner]

@LightDiviner

Heard of it, yeah, but never played it. I think that uses the Job System so you gain AP after battle and use that to level up different classes ("Jobs") and gain new abilities as you advance in Job Levels. At least that's how FF games usually use the Job System.

This one is a bit different. Abilities are tied to weapons and armor. If you equip them, you can use those abilities, but only when equipped. If you use them enough though, you can keep the abilities even if they aren't equiped.

 

[SOC]

I've had the exact same idea and people said pretty much the same thing: it feels bad doing battles that don't reward you enough. Yanfly suggested in comics that you make the EXP. in the next area/dungeon far more rewarding so that power levelers feel more compelled to keep moving forward. So, what you could do, is make sharp EXP. requirements on levels you want players to remain on for your bosses while then sharply increasing EXP. gains to match it in the next areas of your game. That way, players can still feel like they're making some progress. If people are complaining that they want to be able to grind if they want and destroy bosses, then you need to decide as a developer who is your target audience. IMO, it's always best to have a clear audience in mind and craft the game around them specifically instead of just trying to make it appeal to everyone and broaden your audience, because that just lowers the overall quality of the game for everyone. Of course, if that's your goal then sure, but I say if you already want your bosses to remain challenging and prevent power leveling, then design your game around those players in mind. If power levelers don't like it and complain, then your game just isn't meant for them and that's okay. You don't need to get every single person in the world to play your game. Not everyone will like your game, so cater to the ones that do. You can always make power level friendly games in the future if you want to cater to them.

Personally, I like challenging fights that are about clever and fun mechanics instead of just steamrolling them by being overpowered. I want that experience in my games. Another idea is to do what FF14 does and use level sync. That way you can level up and everything by grinding but force your players to be at a certain level/power level when doing specific fights you want. I dunno' how that would work in RPG Maker, maybe a Yanfly ******* should suggest it.

 

[Basileus]

@LightDiviner

Huh, I didn't think Final Fantasy IX was popular enough for them to carry that mechanic over. I guess that works too, but then you have the problem of players needing to grind equipment instead of levels so they can learn all of the skills they want then then go back to using the equipment they want.

Tales of Berseria uses that mechanic too, with a few tweaks, and it can honestly be rather tedious keeping up with it. Especially when I just want to progress the story but feel obligated to master some of my old equipment so I can actually use all of the new stuff I keep picking up.

 

[LostFonDrive]

I honestly don't see the merit in level caps, they seem unnecessary. Part of the beauty of the levelling system is that it gives people an option of grinding their way past any obstacle they're struggling with, but they can also just try to play better instead if they want. They choose. Putting level caps takes that option away for no real reason.

The problem of the game becoming "too easy" from levelling can be avoided by simply designing/balancing the game and EXP growth curves so that it will take way too long to do so, and making it so that each level does not have a huge impact on stats. Think modern Tales games - you can't really grind to become overpowered because it would take hours and hours, plus your equipment and strategy is more important than levels anyway.

Additionally, even if a player does make your game "too easy" by overlevelling, that's their own problem/decision. If they enjoy breaking the game like that (some people genuinely do) then I'd just let them tbh. If they don't enjoy making the game too easy, then they won't do it to begin with.

So yeah, level caps are unnecessary IMO. But if you do put them in, it should be like the XIII crystarium where you at least still get to keep/store the surplus EXP, you just can't use it yet.

 

[Failivrin]

Level caps are used very successfully in the Pokemon games because they are combined with other unique mechanics. For example, you can trade Pokemon from an old game into a new one--so level caps provide an incentive to finish the new game with new pokemon before trading your old ones forward. In spite of level caps, Pokemon strongly encourages grinding. You need to reach Lvl 50 to complete a game, but players often try for Lvl 100 after completion. Why would anyone do that? Bragging rights, a handful of sidequests, and the emotional attachment you inevitably feel for your digital pals? As @Basileus pointed out, some players grind compulsively, and Pokemon aims to offer something for every taste.
One very helpful idea: Pokemon allows players to grind while level caps are in place (not just after game completion). For example, you may have to stop training Pokemon at Lvl 20, but you can catch and train an infinite number of pokemon to Lvl 20! So a normal player may break the level cap with five Lvl 20 Pokemon of his favorite type. A compulsive grinder will break the level cap with a Lvl 20 pokemon from every species she has encountered!
Think about mechanics to balance level caps with that compulsive need to grind, or you may accidentally alienate some players.
One idea I had: Change level caps into level handicaps. Say, for example that instead of making it impossible for a player to level up, you just make it more difficult. If the level cap is 10, a player who wants to reach level 11 will have to gain twice as much EXP as normal. Some people will still go for that 11, but they will get tired of grinding sooner than usual. Just one idea...

 

[dahlys]

Wouldn't it be easier to just make an exp curve that discourages grinding? I've seen that in mmorpgs.

Eg. Same level enemy: kill 10 to level
1 level lower: kill 100 to level
2 levels lower: kill 1000 to level

This way whoever wants to grind can grind, it would just suck big time. Maybe make an open map so they can keep grinding higher level dungeons without completing quests to satisfy people who like being OP. I've run into stuff like that in dq, ff, tales, suikoden, where I got extremely overleveled because... I got lost.

 

[SOC]

I've run into stuff like that in dq, ff, tales, suikoden, where I got extremely overleveled because... I got lost.

Yeah, I absolutely have this problem too. I like to experience the game "as it was designed" to be played, and want the appropriate challenge and difficulty for it, so I always feel very paranoid I might be overleveling or making it too easy for me since I'm also a completionist and try to do every thing, explore and experience everything available before moving on to the next area.
I think some good suggestions were made here like high EXP. curve but next area rewards more, or making level up stats make minor impact and gear matter more so you want to move to next area and buy new gear.