Thinking about RPG designs

So, since I was sick (again) recently, I watched a lot of Heart of Elynthi campaign (*shillWatchItHereshill*) and it got me thinking about how a lot of RPG (tabletop or computer/console) tend to focus on the character growth part of the game. Which, don't get me wrong, is great and all — and I understand that a core game loop in RPGs is gain XP → learn new skills → cakewalk previous difficulty → repeat — but a part of me can't help but really enjoy the idea of maxing out character levels after a certain amount of time and just having all the tools available to take on the challenges that the world will throw at you.

It's a bit like how in Guild Wars (not the second one, the OG Guild Wars) your character leaves the "starter island" aka tutorial at level 20 with all of the class' core abilities and with a full skill kit. Of course, you can vary that a lot and tweak it as you progress through the rest of the story, but the growth is far slower and more incremental than the initial loop of practically exponential power growth. It feels like there's basically 10% tutorial and 90% endgame. Of course, there were also plenty of frustrating bits to the game and I do think there are parts that were tuned in such a way that was needlessly challenging, but the overall ratio of "tutorial" vs "end-game" I think satisfies a part of me that really liked playing around with all the levers to figure out how I liked to approach problem solving.

(To be sure, I am still annoyed with Guild Wars over all for having poor class balance, it really shouldn't be the case that certain classes have a severe case of the feels-bad-man. And seeing how little respect GW2 treated the original GW lore and plot points and story, and the fact that the writers in GW2 all seem to be stuck in their own little modules without paying attention to the bigger picture, plus their horrible character writing puts me off of the game. But at its core, I think Guild Wars' original design concept of having most of the game be end-game is actually kind of refreshing and I wish more games took the time to really polish that concept.)

Here's the thing: while most players might argue the "end-game" starts when you've acquired everything there is to acquire and all that's left is super hard challenging bosses and no more room for improvement for your characters, I don't really see it that way. In my conceptualization of end-game, it starts when there are no more stat bonuses to gain. You can't hit harder, defend better, etc. anymore and what improvement is left is fiddling around to look for better and better optimization and synergy with the pieces you've got. And challenges in the game play come no longer from being able to survive, but rather from figuring out the puzzle of the boss, try to understand what you're supposed to do, which skill you need to use, or what plot point to push forward in order to resolve the conflict. The point of end-game is that it doesn't get harder anymore, it simply challenges you differently.

Of course, this design concept is a bit harder for video games due to its vastly larger decision matrix and limited programming power. However, in a tabletop game, where a huge part of the enjoyment is from socialization and exploration and the DM can spin a new location out of nothing by using theater of the mind stuff, this idea of reaching "max level" (by which I mean getting most of the class mechanics early in the campaign, so this applies to level-less systems, too) has a lot of room to explore. Especially since in tabletop gaming, most players are actually very familiar with their class mechanics and would probably enjoy carrying their character through many different worlds that share the same lore. Being able to travel to a new place to find new items that synergize well with the character's build (which is easier to do with a human DM who knows which mechanical holes exist in your character's repertoire and thus can throw an item that can do the cool thing you want to do when you get to a new town) can be really fun. Having the core style of your character's combat remain the same while at the same time being able to augment it for each new challenge can keep the game fresh while not having to abandon the character just to try something new.

In short, I think what I'm saying is that focusing on tweaking optimization as character progression can be really fun, but rarely do I see games design for that and the only instance I can think of didn't really do the design concept justice.