Herding Gold and Item Farmers into FPS Games.

Lately, many of my recently played FPS games have notoriously capitalized on RPG-like elements, such as the strengthening of your character over time with acquisition of experience and collected items; statistically represented progression in specific objectives, usually in the form of achievements.

Now I'm not against the evolution of gaming, but a particular question keeps me from embracing the changes: are gamers having more fun when they have steady and statistical representation of their accumulation of experience and skill?

Optimistically, gamers play games for entertainment, but it is necessary to see the darker side of gaming as well: competition and egoism - gamers play to get better. Undeniably, much fun is derived from getting and being better. Achievements, milestones and levels certainly give gamers a better reflection of their current strength and ability, rather than a nebulous idea of where they stand, and often reward the gamer with a boost of extra strength for attaining said accomplishments. While statistics don't necessarily mean the player is better, it does give them confidence and a definite ego boost.

RPG leveling elements can help counterbalance the gaps of player skill, as it rewards a skilled level 20 player and an unskilled level 20 player by the same indiscriminate amount, as opposed to a traditional method where a better player can quickly amass and horde all the best weapons and vehicles on the map, denying others of the opportunity. It also lets players feel rewarded for spending a great deal of time and effort in a game, even if they were often losing and having an unpleasant experience while playing. The achievements give the player a sense of accomplishment that would let the player know not all their time was wasted, and the hope that with enough time, they too would reach greater milestones that will award new bonuses.

However, would adding something like achievements to a real life sport, like tennis result in tennis players having more fun? Certainly people play sports to have fun, but they also do it to better themselves at the game. Would they benefit from having a statistical measurement of their estimated ability, outside of tournament ranking systems? What do you say to them? "Congrats, you have reached the 200 hour milestone for tennis training"... Or maybe, "You have earned achievement: Rocket ball straight into opponent's face." Or perhaps, on low random chance of defeating an opponent, you obtain rare purple tennis shoes, that adds +3 to your dash speed. Is this going to make tennis more fun? Would that even make a tennis VIDEO GAME more fun?

When we isolate the RPG elements to their core, we can see that they can help smoothen out a game experience... But there is a proper method of when and where to use it. The problem that is cropping up in the game industry is that developers are starting to use RPG elements as a cure-all to bolster their game and give it a new shine without contemplating how they could actually IMPROVE the genre of their existing game. Just adding a new leveling feature or touting an achievement pack is not worthy of being mentioned as a selling enticement. Not all games need to be like a RTS, and in fact, it will be soon a breath of fresh air to not have to think about leveling in our games. FPSes were always great for being a game where you could jump in and play, and there were no levels to think about that would inhibit your ability to kick ass. Developers should focus on how to build on the current aspects of their games, while introducing new exciting concepts that were not just hastily borrowed from other genres. Not only are these ideas often poorly translated across genres, but they also do not match the current gameplay, are not forays of originality, and alienate the original player base. And think about it this way: As soon as people have to start grinding for levels or items in whatever game it is, you're going to have the same band of notorious gold-farmers or botters that follow in the wake of every evil RPG. Only this time, the developers are inexperienced with RPG dilemmas and have no idea of what proper countermeasures to employ to safeguard against these corrupters, and the problem only spreads from there. Bottom line: don't play with fire.


Addendum:
Recently, Command and Conquer 4, a RTS in development by EALA, was announced... Yet one of its main features is commanders gaining experience from their battles and leveling up after matches regardless of the outcome, and slowly unlock units and abilities in their arsenal in a manner identical to Call of Duty 4. This is an example of where leveling elements were entirely unnecessary, but as the game was revealed much after the majority of this article was composed, I will save my comments related to it for another time.