From classic character leveling to staged improvements to diversify gameplay.
Progress in games is not just about earning experience points and using them to buy skills and characteristics. It includes any new gameplay features and character changes. Even if you are given a new weapon during a linear game, that is also progress, just staged.
Progress has three main objectives. First, to keep the player engaged — to create a kind of goal. Second, to make the gameplay more varied — so that the player doesn’t get tired of using the same thing over and over again. Third, to set limits — so that it’s not possible to explore all the locations at once or quickly “run through” the game.
We have divided progress into three groups: customizable, directed, and independent. But, of course, they are often combined.
Customizable progress
It is customizable progress that players most often associate with progress itself. The mechanics allow you to customize your character — their characteristics, abilities, and so on — to suit yourself. We ended up with the following subgroups.
Classic RPG system
In role-playing games, the process is tied to leveling up the character: the more enemies the player kills or tasks they complete, the more experience they gain. For each new level, they receive a certain number of points, which they can distribute at their discretion to make the hero stronger. First and foremost, this system is distinguished by its deep personalization.
In Wasteland 3, you can independently improve the basic characteristics of fighters (for example, intelligence, speed, or luck), skills (proficiency with light weapons or repairing toasters), and learn abilities that can be used in combat.
The gameplay will change depending on the parameters. If you level up a “hacker,” then when you encounter synths (a kind of android), you can hack them and avoid a bloody shootout, which is unlikely to end in the player’s favor due to its difficulty. And high intelligence will give you a good chance of landing a critical hit on the enemy. Even the most unremarkable skills can be extremely useful: by dismantling a toaster, you can get gold parts that are very expensive, and money in the game is not lying around on the road and is always needed. But it will not be possible to adapt to all situations. By investing in one thing, you will inevitably have to sacrifice something else.
In many RPGs, you can level up your “communication” skill to talk to any interlocutor and complete the entire game without killing anyone. Also, if you want to minimize clashes with enemies, it’s worth spending points on stealth — then you’ll be able to slip past them unnoticed. In the same way, you can turn the protagonist into a relentless machine for destroying enemies, which will sweep away everything in its path. The bartering skill is useful for haggling with merchants. Medicine increases the effectiveness of treatment and, consequently, increases survivability during combat.
Simplified RPG system
This is when the character’s characteristics grow automatically or do not change at all, but there is a talent tree. The player chooses a “branch” and then sequentially unlocks bonuses and skills on it. The most useful ones are usually at the end and require the most points, which are awarded for each new level.
For example, in Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Bayek initially only has strong and weak attacks and a block at his disposal. But after leveling up a dozen times and unlocking talent after talent, he can be taught to meditate, carry more weapons, parry enemy attacks, use a hidden blade while jumping, control arrows, use bombs and checkers, slow down time while aiming, and improve many other techniques. At the same time, the character’s strength and endurance grow, just as the developers intended.
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the situation is different — Geralt has access to all of his basic abilities right from the start: he can fence, dodge, shoot a crossbow, brew potions, use bombs, and cast simple spells. Later on, you can make these skills more effective by increasing damage and critical hit chance, as well as unlocking special moves and alternative abilities. For example, you can learn “Whirlwind,” an attack that scatters enemies around you. Or “upgrade” the Igni sign, replacing the standard fire wave with a focused stream of flame.
Item system
In all of the above games, progress is not only tied to the character’s leveling up. The items they possess are another important system. They provide all kinds of bonuses to damage, defense, stamina, magic, and so on, thereby strengthening the character. Some items have special effects. In Assassin’s Creed: Origins, there are poisonous blades, and in The Witcher 3, there is a sword whose damage increases with each new strike. At the same time, loot is usually abundant: you can find it in caches, get it for completing tasks, or collect it from the corpses of defeated enemies.
Most often, this progression mechanic is in addition to others. But in looter shooters such as Destiny and The Division, it is the main one. The player levels up their character primarily with the help of clothing and weapons — these are what affect all characteristics.
At the same time, items have a “level” — in Destiny, this characteristic is called “light.” If you wear better armor, your “light” level increases, which in turn increases your character’s damage and defense.
The “Use to Level Up” System
Simply put, the more you use a certain weapon or other item, the higher your proficiency with it becomes. For example, this system is found in Rockstar games. In GTA, the more you shoot an automatic weapon, the less recoil it has and the faster it reloads. In Red Dead Redemption 2, there is also a horse trust level — the longer you use it and the better you take care of it, the higher its stamina and health, as well as stronger nerves (which helps in shootouts and encounters with wolves).
The Elder Scrolls series has a combined system. There, too, the more you fight with a certain type of weapon, the better you become at using it. But this is an addition to a simplified RPG system: you gain levels — your stats grow on their own, and you buy skill upgrades with experience points.