he mentioned trolls and goblins... that sounds fun.
Also, does anybody else think zombies should have attacks?
not just hitting you but actual attacks?
Notch has mentioned that he prefers dumb AI in the game, but he's sort of changed that a bit when he added new combat skills, so some of his original ideas are being modified in light of newer more robust ideas. Also I'm not sure we will ever see those types of monsters mentioned, because he seems to have decided to go more of a unique-style of setting with things like pigmen, ghasts, endermen, and creepers; however, at the same time we got spiders, zombies, and skellies, and slimes; which are true to form fantasy.
It appears he now wants his own spin on the generic fantasy setting, but I think that is a great idea and support his creativity.
Also, I love your signature.
:brofist:
Old minecrafters unite.
Campaigns in RTS to me were always the training ground for the game itself, that being multiplayer experience.
First example I can think of is Starcraft2 : as you said you get new units during your playthrough but that is only meant for starters to grasp the utility of the different units in the game, and to balance it out.
You have a choice about implementing that unit in your playstile or not, unlike other games with "rpg" elements where the moment you get the new ability you NEED to use it to get past.
Also RTS don't force you to get upgrades, new buildings and such to give the player the feeling of progression.
It is like that both for balancing it out, and to grant the game more strategies : you aren't forced to upgrade yourself because that's the only logical solution, because by doing that you can expose your defenses too much and lose the match.
It's not flat progression, it's a trade-off.
Same thing with racing games and shoot'em up : you get the new car or the new rifle. Not just because it is new it's gonna be better than the last one you had. You new Lamborgini will have less maneuverability, or accelleration, and you new rocket launcher takes a shitload of time to reload and needs you to stand still for shooting.
Yes, the new units in a RS are introduced slowly to help you learn. The progression is still real. You still end up going form fighting a batch of 10 zerglings and being challenged to waging epic wars with dozens of motherships and endless hoards of enemies. That progression simply cannot be on skill alone, yet is a really desirable aspect of the design, in many cases.
And while exactly which upgrades you get will vary from game based on the situation, many RPGs offer a similar strategic choice. You choose which upgrades you want, and by doing so are not getting other upgrades. You focus on upgrading your attack strength, your defense suffers. You have limited resources to work with, and must deploy them effectively. They could easily start RTS games where each side has 5,000 starting resources to work from and can pretty quickly materialize an army. But they don't. It is good gameplay to escalate the stakes as the game wagers on. You start with a few scouting units, end up getting into skirmishes, and then end up with massive armies at full tilt. That progression of power is intentional. Its part what you make and how you use it, but it is also part how you get there. There is a reason the economy is considered key to the game.
As far as games with RPG elements that require you to use an ability as soon as you get it, that is similar to the unlocking of new abilities. They are introducing new elements of the game. They give you a pared down version of the game elements, and let you learn it, then add new elements and let you learn those.
And just because a new item has tradeoffs or is situationally useful does not make it an upgrade. Many abilities you can access in an RPG have similar trade-offs. They have different resource expenditures. One balancing element on powerful weapons are often the ammo clips. Sure, the weapon is awesome, but you can't use it for everything. Similarly, abilities you unlock in an RPG are often situational, you have to figure out when it is tactically appropriate to use them, and its largest benefit is an expansion of your options.
This type of "power ups" are nothing like the common rpg power ups, which ALWAYS boost you character in every possible scenario.
Regarding fighting games you'd be surprised on how much theorycrafting is there. You could look for some SF4 videos around the Internet and I'm fairly sure you won't be able to describe that playstile as buttonsmashing :tongue.gif:
Yes, oftentimes RPGs boost your stats completely. However, that is generally offset by an equivalent increase in enemy power, hence allowing you to ramp up the difficulty a lot harder than without it. Once advantage ofthis is in open-world games, you can revisit old areas and have it ot be annoying. You get to se how far you have come,and those annoying slimes and now things you flick away. This makes traversing old parts of the game world easier without leaving them barren.
And I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of theory to fighting games. I'm saying that it is inaccessible to the vast majority of the people who play it, and they end up button mashing. The people who truly master fighting games is a rather specific subset of gamers.
And I agree with this, I'm not saying that everygame needs to base its progression with the difficulty curve and the player getting better, that is ridiculous. But in the same way you are targeting a specific group of ppl with my way, you are doing the same in your way. Nowadays, keeping in mind that the market has grown alot since 1980, you are targeting at the majority of players around, thus you make a game that is appealing to them. That is why Nintendo went from metroid to wii sports or the ds.
For sure there are games which are more appealing to the hardcores, that nonetheless have features to please the casuals too. In Starcraft for example even if you play casual you are gonna get paired with ppl with your same skill level, or in World of Warcraft you can target both casuals and hardcores by implementing different difficulties and tasks.
And I don't see it as being the right gameplay for minecraft. You do have everyone from people's grandma to hardcore gamers playing. Literally. With such an extremely diverse set of skills, you can't rely on the learning curve at all. Hence, resources are the dominant factor. The resources of a diamond set of armor and sword are obtainable by all, and the skilled people can use their skill to get it earlier. Skill turns from a direct benefit to a secondary benefit, still very useful, but not a strict requirement. The wide range of difficulties also helps accommodate this. a leveling mechanic allows the forces to be presented in a greater variety of difficulties without relying on the player achieving mastery of the combat system to achieve it. If you add an enemy with twice as much health and attack power, itis 4x as tough as another mob. Instead of requiring a player to learn 4x the skill to take it out, you allow them to get upgrades of a similar magnitude, and bring the challenge in line with their skill. a scale of enemy difficulties allows you to push your self against the appropriate level of enemies for yourself and get the appropriate rewards.
If you are referring to really old games like Super Mario for Nes then you must know that it wasn't really a stylistic choice, but an hardware limitation. Cartridges had no memory built in back then so the only way to get to the point were you left were passwords.
Yeah, a lot of it was hardware limitation. I will give them that. but game design theory has advanced considerably since that era, often learning from its mistakes. Not that current design is flawless, or hasn't taken some annoying side tangents.
Again I agree with this being a nice solution for a game like Minecraft. But it isn't really the general rule valid for every type of game.
You are right, I was overly general in my initial assertions. Its more that the idea of advancing the character in order to reach greater heights in the game appeals to me, so most of my analysis of game design has been focused on that aspect.
Meh in Minecraft the character doesn't really upgrade itself, those are more like buffs than the upgrades you see in games like Final Fantasy. And since it isn't as relevant which armor set you use or which weapon you use, and the amount of buffs and debuffs is very limited, you couldn't really consider it a Rpg.
I was just going off the definition you had mentioned. Upgrading your armor and weapons is semi-permament. You can lose it, but it is fairly trivial to maintain, so classifying it as a buff is rather misleading.
Ye ye don't get me wrong. I wasn't implying that rpg type of game require no thought at all and for sure there's a lot of theorycrafting regarding best gear selection, best spell selection and such (even if usually most players don't do the "math" themselves but copy what someone else did).
It sure does rely on the skill of the player, unfortunately pretty often the major bonus you can have isn't your skill but the progression of the character itself, and this is usually accomplished by endless grinding.
grinding is the result of improper game design. Don't even get me started on grinding.
sorry if any of this is incoherent, I'm writing this at 4AM.
Ouch, I actually took the time to thoughtfully answer the OP's post, and not so much as an acknowledgement. I'm not usually an attention *****, but when you plea for a thoughtful candid response, and I give one, and you turn around and ignore it... well, this kind of thing is why generally I don't give those types of responses on this site. I'm actually nowhere near as hostile in real life as I am on this site... but man, do you people breed that kind of behavior. :tongue.gif:
Ouch, I actually took the time to thoughtfully answer the OP's post, and not so much as an acknowledgement. I'm not usually an attention *****, but when you plea for a thoughtful candid response, and I give one, and you turn around and ignore it... well, this kind of thing is why generally I don't give those types of responses on this site. I'm actually nowhere near as hostile in real life as I am on this site... but man, do you people breed that kind of behavior. :tongue.gif:
I'm not on here constantly, and when i am it's only for a couple minutes, if that; usually just to check and see if there are any updates in development (which takes all of 3 seconds). Point being this thread certainly isn't the center of my attention, which is why i didn't respond immediately. I do agree with pretty much everything you had to say though. I don't ignore anything that's a direct response to anything I post unless it's incredibly stupid or ignorant.
I'm not on here constantly, and when i am it's only for a couple minutes, if that; usually just to check and see if there are any updates in development (which takes all of 3 seconds). Point being this thread certainly isn't the center of my attention, which is why i didn't respond immediately. I do agree with pretty much everything you had to say though. I don't ignore anything that's a direct response to anything I post unless it's incredibly stupid or ignorant.
Oh... I see. That makes sense. Well, hey, thanks for acknowledging me, I appreciate it. :smile.gif: Normally this board isn't my #1 Thing To Do, but I've got two screens which lets me multitask, and lately I've been making these forums my Secondary Pastime. Probably not for much longer though... I end up posting here for a while then going away (much to the delight of most people here :wink.gif:) coming back later.
Honestly, I'd recommend you just saving your Jars, in case Minecraft becomes Runescape without the quests, or some WOW game. I've been saving my Jars from each version just because of the possibility or the game becoming just like Runescape. Runescape was also good at first, now its some childish fairy tale asking you for money. But, IMHO potions belong but this should be the end to this magical b/s. If we get magical spells, I'm just downgrading my jar.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Full-time Male nursing student, part-time runner, and casual gamer.
Personally, I think that potions (and enchantments even though they aren't in the topic I feel they need to be included) are just a natural expansion of the games current magical elements. There are animated corpses and skeletons, magical red dust that makes certain objects do things, portals to hell (the Nether), floating islands (most aren't big but still), the ability to carry ever expanding lava and water in buckets, and creating things with a magical 3x3 grid. The list goes on and would be bigger if I went into more detail. To me, potions seem to be the natural next step to what already is in the game.
Redstone is minecraft's version of copper wire not magical dust. Mobs have been in minecraft since survival test. Workbenches have been in minecraft since survival test. Minecraft is Minecraft. Minecraft is supposed to be what you make of it, not an rpg. Dumb ass. And floating islands are a glitch because of the map generation system. Go play some oblivion and fallout, minecraft isn't an rpg.
There are indeed some analogies between Rts, racing games, all the other genres we discussed about, and Rpgs.
Thou the main difference I see is the fact that in regular Rpgs you are required to power up your character, while in the other types of game listed you are not. You are required to get the slingshot in Zelda to progress, or to raise you character level in FF, you aren't required to get new cars or new units in Rts to get to your goal.
This is what bothers me the most and makes me think that there's indeed a difference and that you can't list everything as "progression" without distinction.
You argument is interesting, but there's still something that prevents me to be totally convinced.
If you try to play a RTS or racing game without utilizing new units or cars, and you are not going to win. Sure, there may be certain tactics that utilize only basic units(zergling rush), but those rely on ending the game before it escalates past that point. Thats the equivlent of winning an RPG at level 5 s oyou don't have to level up to 100. Granted, that is not typically possible in an RPG, but they are different genre's with different dynamics. The progression is still there, and you need to use it.
Ye the game gets balanced around upgrades and around the strenght of your character, and the again you keep traveling in new areas where monsters are stronger, mostly because if you wanna proceed further you need to get faster, better, stronger :smile.gif: and so on : it's a vicious circle. The game itself is unplayable in lower zone because you are destroying everything regardless and there's no reason to be in there (except for grinding stuff). Pretty obvious stuff.
I played Diablo 2 and Wow for quite some and I learned how it works pretty well :biggrin.gif:
You are right. However, I think being able to go back and squish those monsters that where giving you a hard time isa good game mechanic. Its exactly what I was saying about it allowing you to escalate the game to a much higher degree. Additionally, if its not relying solely on skill, when ou replay the game, those enemies are dangerous again, and while your personal experience will get you through them easier, the replay still has some challenge. If the game is based on pure skill, once you have mastered them, every replay makes the low levels a pointless slog to wade through to get to the relevant content.
Indeed most of those games are designed for the hardcore players. Fighting games would be much different if they were designed for casuals ... something like super smash bros maybe ?
And for a pure hardcore audience, pure skill works fine.
If you want everyone to taste every single aspect of the game this is indeed true.
I don't know if this is what Notch is aiming for thou. I mean with a sandbox game like this you can play it low profile, medium profile and high profile without the feeling of "I'm missing something"
Actually, the big reason that progression is needed in minecraft is because it is relatively skill invariant. Yes, your skill at combat is important, but there is not a lot of room to execute that skill. The game is not nimble enough to make dodging a hail of projectiles interesting. There is not enough finesse in the mellee combat to to make an opponent that is a trickier combatant. The most we get is spiders leaping at you, requireing some timing to counter, and endermen teleporting.
In a game where you can get into attack,counter, parry, tumble around to maneuver, dart in and out, you can effectively get skill to carry you through a boss fight. But minecraft is too... clunky to make that a satisfying experience. You can add those elements to the fight to make it more interesting, but trying to design a boss fight that would rely on skill alone to beat wouldn't work well.
Hence, if you want a boss mob with 50 health and such, you need to raise the base level of the combat to put it on a different level from your run of the mill monsters. You escalate up, build up power, and battle it. You have earned those upgrades in minecraft. You dragged those diamonds out of the earth, you faced down the nether for these potions, you earned the enchantment on your sword. The gathering of resources to better yourself is a core mechanic in minecraft. This is extending that to the next level, and giving you places where you need it. If you can just walk over to a boss and defeat it, it lacks substance. You need to earn the victory.
It's possible that at Mojang they want their content to be accessible to everyone, still, thinking about the nature of the game itself at this point, it's enjoable even if all you do is mine stone and build towns. Because of that there could very well be parts of the game that will be unreachable by a part of the playerbase, without getting the game gimped.
I think that whether they partake in that aspect of the game should be determined primarily by their interest.
It's also not entirely correct to classify it as a permanent upgrade thou.
From my Pov getting diamond sword is more similiar to the super mario Fire Flower then leveling up your chara.
Thou the process is alot slower and, in the same way, the benefits decay slower.
Once I get a diamond sword, I pretty much have it forever. I'll lose it before I wear it out, and at that point I just make a new one from my spare pile of diamonds. Even if I don't have a spare pile of diamonds, you will have astack of iron. When you get to utilize the ability for the rest of eternity, its a permament upgrade, even if it has some upkeep cost.
Potions, in contrast, will be temporty. You gather the resources, makea potion, and get to go faster... for a couple minutes. Then its over. You will spend a significant amount of time without its benefits.
Eheh we should start by the definition of the term, or you could consider "playing the game" grinding.
Doing the same task repeatedly, without interesting variation. Playing a long series of chess games is not grinding, because each game will unfold differently, you have to actively strategize againt your opponent, and engage in the battle. Each game is interesting. Playing many games of starcraft II are not grinding, since each one unfolds in a completely different way, an requires you to respond to it and fully engage. Going through the fire forest for the 15th time, killing the same enemies you have been fighting for hours, rehashing the same battke repeatedly, just because you need to do so to advance, is grinding. Playing through the fire forest the first time is experienceing fresh content, face new enemies, have to devise strategies against them, explore the area, and its not grinding. If the level is designed poorly, it can become grinding in and off itself(zubats in pokemon. Walk 10 steps, squish a bat. Walk ten steps, squish a bat. Even going through the level the first time is grinding). Mining in runescape is grinding. Mine an ore. Wait for it to regen. click on it. mine it. repeat till your inventory is full. go to town, smelt them, craft it, sell, repeat. The only benefit out of the cycle is more money and experience, and the cycle itself lacks any meaningful gameplay.
Mass effect did it right. You go through a level. You have a series of combat scenarios. You face different enemies, in a variety of settings, turning the landscape to your advantage, and actively engage in combat. You level up, but the progression matches the game flow, so you are always at the appropriate level for where you need to be. You don't have to replay the same level several times just to level up so you can take on the next. You don't have to engage in pointless, mindless tasks just to rack up gold.
Notch has mentioned that he prefers dumb AI in the game, but he's sort of changed that a bit when he added new combat skills, so some of his original ideas are being modified in light of newer more robust ideas. Also I'm not sure we will ever see those types of monsters mentioned, because he seems to have decided to go more of a unique-style of setting with things like pigmen, ghasts, endermen, and creepers; however, at the same time we got spiders, zombies, and skellies, and slimes; which are true to form fantasy.
It appears he now wants his own spin on the generic fantasy setting, but I think that is a great idea and support his creativity.
Also, I love your signature.
:brofist:
Old minecrafters unite.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
Yes, the new units in a RS are introduced slowly to help you learn. The progression is still real. You still end up going form fighting a batch of 10 zerglings and being challenged to waging epic wars with dozens of motherships and endless hoards of enemies. That progression simply cannot be on skill alone, yet is a really desirable aspect of the design, in many cases.
And while exactly which upgrades you get will vary from game based on the situation, many RPGs offer a similar strategic choice. You choose which upgrades you want, and by doing so are not getting other upgrades. You focus on upgrading your attack strength, your defense suffers. You have limited resources to work with, and must deploy them effectively. They could easily start RTS games where each side has 5,000 starting resources to work from and can pretty quickly materialize an army. But they don't. It is good gameplay to escalate the stakes as the game wagers on. You start with a few scouting units, end up getting into skirmishes, and then end up with massive armies at full tilt. That progression of power is intentional. Its part what you make and how you use it, but it is also part how you get there. There is a reason the economy is considered key to the game.
As far as games with RPG elements that require you to use an ability as soon as you get it, that is similar to the unlocking of new abilities. They are introducing new elements of the game. They give you a pared down version of the game elements, and let you learn it, then add new elements and let you learn those.
And just because a new item has tradeoffs or is situationally useful does not make it an upgrade. Many abilities you can access in an RPG have similar trade-offs. They have different resource expenditures. One balancing element on powerful weapons are often the ammo clips. Sure, the weapon is awesome, but you can't use it for everything. Similarly, abilities you unlock in an RPG are often situational, you have to figure out when it is tactically appropriate to use them, and its largest benefit is an expansion of your options.
Yes, oftentimes RPGs boost your stats completely. However, that is generally offset by an equivalent increase in enemy power, hence allowing you to ramp up the difficulty a lot harder than without it. Once advantage ofthis is in open-world games, you can revisit old areas and have it ot be annoying. You get to se how far you have come,and those annoying slimes and now things you flick away. This makes traversing old parts of the game world easier without leaving them barren.
And I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of theory to fighting games. I'm saying that it is inaccessible to the vast majority of the people who play it, and they end up button mashing. The people who truly master fighting games is a rather specific subset of gamers.
And I don't see it as being the right gameplay for minecraft. You do have everyone from people's grandma to hardcore gamers playing. Literally. With such an extremely diverse set of skills, you can't rely on the learning curve at all. Hence, resources are the dominant factor. The resources of a diamond set of armor and sword are obtainable by all, and the skilled people can use their skill to get it earlier. Skill turns from a direct benefit to a secondary benefit, still very useful, but not a strict requirement. The wide range of difficulties also helps accommodate this. a leveling mechanic allows the forces to be presented in a greater variety of difficulties without relying on the player achieving mastery of the combat system to achieve it. If you add an enemy with twice as much health and attack power, itis 4x as tough as another mob. Instead of requiring a player to learn 4x the skill to take it out, you allow them to get upgrades of a similar magnitude, and bring the challenge in line with their skill. a scale of enemy difficulties allows you to push your self against the appropriate level of enemies for yourself and get the appropriate rewards.
Yeah, a lot of it was hardware limitation. I will give them that. but game design theory has advanced considerably since that era, often learning from its mistakes. Not that current design is flawless, or hasn't taken some annoying side tangents.
You are right, I was overly general in my initial assertions. Its more that the idea of advancing the character in order to reach greater heights in the game appeals to me, so most of my analysis of game design has been focused on that aspect.
I was just going off the definition you had mentioned. Upgrading your armor and weapons is semi-permament. You can lose it, but it is fairly trivial to maintain, so classifying it as a buff is rather misleading.
grinding is the result of improper game design. Don't even get me started on grinding.
sorry if any of this is incoherent, I'm writing this at 4AM.
I'm not on here constantly, and when i am it's only for a couple minutes, if that; usually just to check and see if there are any updates in development (which takes all of 3 seconds). Point being this thread certainly isn't the center of my attention, which is why i didn't respond immediately. I do agree with pretty much everything you had to say though. I don't ignore anything that's a direct response to anything I post unless it's incredibly stupid or ignorant.
Oh... I see. That makes sense. Well, hey, thanks for acknowledging me, I appreciate it. :smile.gif: Normally this board isn't my #1 Thing To Do, but I've got two screens which lets me multitask, and lately I've been making these forums my Secondary Pastime. Probably not for much longer though... I end up posting here for a while then going away (much to the delight of most people here :wink.gif:) coming back later.
Redstone is minecraft's version of copper wire not magical dust. Mobs have been in minecraft since survival test. Workbenches have been in minecraft since survival test. Minecraft is Minecraft. Minecraft is supposed to be what you make of it, not an rpg. Dumb ass. And floating islands are a glitch because of the map generation system. Go play some oblivion and fallout, minecraft isn't an rpg.
If you try to play a RTS or racing game without utilizing new units or cars, and you are not going to win. Sure, there may be certain tactics that utilize only basic units(zergling rush), but those rely on ending the game before it escalates past that point. Thats the equivlent of winning an RPG at level 5 s oyou don't have to level up to 100. Granted, that is not typically possible in an RPG, but they are different genre's with different dynamics. The progression is still there, and you need to use it.
You are right. However, I think being able to go back and squish those monsters that where giving you a hard time isa good game mechanic. Its exactly what I was saying about it allowing you to escalate the game to a much higher degree. Additionally, if its not relying solely on skill, when ou replay the game, those enemies are dangerous again, and while your personal experience will get you through them easier, the replay still has some challenge. If the game is based on pure skill, once you have mastered them, every replay makes the low levels a pointless slog to wade through to get to the relevant content.
And for a pure hardcore audience, pure skill works fine.
Actually, the big reason that progression is needed in minecraft is because it is relatively skill invariant. Yes, your skill at combat is important, but there is not a lot of room to execute that skill. The game is not nimble enough to make dodging a hail of projectiles interesting. There is not enough finesse in the mellee combat to to make an opponent that is a trickier combatant. The most we get is spiders leaping at you, requireing some timing to counter, and endermen teleporting.
In a game where you can get into attack,counter, parry, tumble around to maneuver, dart in and out, you can effectively get skill to carry you through a boss fight. But minecraft is too... clunky to make that a satisfying experience. You can add those elements to the fight to make it more interesting, but trying to design a boss fight that would rely on skill alone to beat wouldn't work well.
Hence, if you want a boss mob with 50 health and such, you need to raise the base level of the combat to put it on a different level from your run of the mill monsters. You escalate up, build up power, and battle it. You have earned those upgrades in minecraft. You dragged those diamonds out of the earth, you faced down the nether for these potions, you earned the enchantment on your sword. The gathering of resources to better yourself is a core mechanic in minecraft. This is extending that to the next level, and giving you places where you need it. If you can just walk over to a boss and defeat it, it lacks substance. You need to earn the victory.
I think that whether they partake in that aspect of the game should be determined primarily by their interest.
Once I get a diamond sword, I pretty much have it forever. I'll lose it before I wear it out, and at that point I just make a new one from my spare pile of diamonds. Even if I don't have a spare pile of diamonds, you will have astack of iron. When you get to utilize the ability for the rest of eternity, its a permament upgrade, even if it has some upkeep cost.
Potions, in contrast, will be temporty. You gather the resources, makea potion, and get to go faster... for a couple minutes. Then its over. You will spend a significant amount of time without its benefits.
Doing the same task repeatedly, without interesting variation. Playing a long series of chess games is not grinding, because each game will unfold differently, you have to actively strategize againt your opponent, and engage in the battle. Each game is interesting. Playing many games of starcraft II are not grinding, since each one unfolds in a completely different way, an requires you to respond to it and fully engage. Going through the fire forest for the 15th time, killing the same enemies you have been fighting for hours, rehashing the same battke repeatedly, just because you need to do so to advance, is grinding. Playing through the fire forest the first time is experienceing fresh content, face new enemies, have to devise strategies against them, explore the area, and its not grinding. If the level is designed poorly, it can become grinding in and off itself(zubats in pokemon. Walk 10 steps, squish a bat. Walk ten steps, squish a bat. Even going through the level the first time is grinding). Mining in runescape is grinding. Mine an ore. Wait for it to regen. click on it. mine it. repeat till your inventory is full. go to town, smelt them, craft it, sell, repeat. The only benefit out of the cycle is more money and experience, and the cycle itself lacks any meaningful gameplay.
Mass effect did it right. You go through a level. You have a series of combat scenarios. You face different enemies, in a variety of settings, turning the landscape to your advantage, and actively engage in combat. You level up, but the progression matches the game flow, so you are always at the appropriate level for where you need to be. You don't have to replay the same level several times just to level up so you can take on the next. You don't have to engage in pointless, mindless tasks just to rack up gold.
You have been perfectly clear and coherent.