Experience and Leveling Up - Required or Not?

[Jirbytaylor]

As many of you may, or may not, know; I use a program called RPG Maker to... make RPGs. So it is sensible enough to think I must think about the mechanics of certain systems I may create. One such common one would be levelling up.
Almost every RPG that uses some sort of experience system will have levelling up - either for an overall level, for statistics, or for weapons and spells. Sometimes, as it is the case in my game, you level up, your experience drops to 0, the maximum increases, and you move on. (In the case of some, specifically RPG Maker's default system, your maximum EXP is doubled and increased, but decreasing the current to 0 makes setting up menus easier in RM.)

Now this discussion isn't about the system itself, it is actually about how it's applied. A certain project of mine uses an Action Battle System similar to that of Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore and Seiken Densetsu 3. Moreso the latter, as you have "pips" of stamina, that go down as you attack, and up as you rest. You cannot attack when your stamina is 0, and as of the moment, attack power is also unaffected by the percentage of stamina.

So I am wondering what of the two styles here do you prefer, or what your opinions of them are. I may have missed some more styles or points, but what I have here I think covers the basics. Any thoughts or other styles that you've experienced or heard of are welcome.

Experience is Required
- Leveling up may be fast, at least so by the first boss you may be about level 4.
- Later enemies will pulverize you if you aren't a high enough level.
- Certain enemies are immune to certain attacks or skills unless you are at the right level.
- In terms of an ABS: You better have cleared all the enemies for their exp.

Experience? Pah! I have Luck!
- Leveling up may be a bit slower, and you may still be at level 4 by the second boss.
- Later enemies may hurt you badly, but you have reflexes.
- Special attacks are based on game progress rather than level progress.
- In terms of an ABS: You've run away from enemies before, you can do it again!

For those who are interested; my game's statistics range from about 8 to 98, and are Attack, Defence, Critical Hit Rate, and Stamina Pip Recovery Speed. Of course these aren't what they're called in-game, but that's what they are and should make more sense that way without the game to explain them. (And yes there's HP, MP and the stamina pips, but you probably would've guessed that.)

[mamthew42]

While I'm not positive that I understand what it is you're trying to do in terms of gameplay, I will say that I do enjoy fighting enemies to level up, so I would probably go with the first.  I like a gradual growth in enemies' strength that the player rises to meet by fighting enemies without running away too often.

[Hypotenuse Man]

My personal belief is that, in a well-designed game, if you fight most/all of the random encounters going towards the boss (and have decent equipment) you should be more or less ready for the boss. I loathe grinding, could you tell?

In terms of your question, with the above in mind, I think the first option is better, but only if you make the higher level enemies punish you only when you have been running away too much.

[VGJustice]

I'm with Hypo on this one. Bosses should be hard enough to pose a threat, but grinding shouldn't be excessive. It'll only distract the player from the story if they have to go out and kill infinitymillion Fuchsia Slimebots before they can take on Bossman Boss.

[Jirbytaylor]

Interesting, I kinda expected the opposite to be favoured, then again it seems that people are in more of a middle-ground in terms of how much grinding is required.

I know I've found grinding in ABS's before difficult, while the hacking and slashing is fun, doing it a lot is difficult.

[Diddgery]

Depends on what type of game it is. If it's an Action RPG that's heavy on action, then I could care less about my level and worry mostly about devising strategies that help me survive and take out whatever gets in the way- that's how I got through most of Sword of Mana (though I did get stuck, eventually) as well as how I'm getting through Terranigma. If it's an Action RPG that's got a lot of RPG to it, though, then experience can be a factor. Like Kingdom Hearts: you can get through the game without worrying about experience, but it will be very difficult at key boss fights so it's worth it to take the time to fight every battle you come across, since running away can be detrimental in the long run.

Since it sounds like you're doing the same thing that was done in Sword of Mana, I'd say that I'd probably play as I did in that game.

[Kyusil]

If it's a traditional RPG, there shouldn't be any need to grind because the gameplay gets really stale really fast. When it becomes a matter of mathematically being able to win every time, but still needing experience points, the game becomes no longer worth playing. My favorite RPGs are ones where grinding is either completely unnecessary or really fun due to the unpredictability of the battles (hence why I like the RPGs I do).