RPGS, or JRPGS

Think Monster Hunter style powering up: pure gear.

I will also settle for a game in which the levels are a red herring and actually something else, like FF8 where they were actually a game state alteration setting.

Make a team of four Robots.

I would love to see more games with this sort of "level" scaling as opposed to stats and shit.

What? Could someone explain this? First time i've heard of such thing

FF8 was geared more towards learning and mastering the junction system rather than levelling and experience/skill progression. higher levels scaled up enemies' levels, so you could cater to your preferred difficulty by grinding or avoiding u necessary fights as you preferred

For a new player, levels seem to work like levels work traditionally: you get EXP, then you level up and get stronger.

But in reality the enemies level with you, so your game level is always the same as the enemy level. The first tip off you might notice is it takes the exact amount of EXP to level for each level.

What you also don't get told is that, the behavior of the enemies at different levels can vary extremely. Especially the bosses.

More than that, the game is designed so that, if you wanted to play through the game at a low level, you can do that (you get access to enc-none almost at the start of the game if you know what you are doing, which means you never have a random fight again). And there is a room which, if you know what you are doing, can make your party max level in a few hours by grinding there (a monster gives 1000exp there, which is how much it takes to level).

Combine these, and you can choose to have wildly different experiences of the game depending on how you manipulate your level. Parts of the game that were exceptionally hard on one end of the spectrum won't be on the other, and the same in reverse.

Playing through the game with a level in the teens is totally different than playing through the entire game at lvl 99.

This is doable because your stats are determined by the draw/junction system and the other traits assigned to your characters through your GF's and their levels (Which are gained through a totally different way). Add in the card system which means you can gather cards and refine them into stuff for your GF's without gaining exp, and you realize the level system isn't a level system at all in any traditional sense other than pure cosmetics.

I really wonder why Skyrim could have just done this and get rid of the level system instead of the retarded level-scaling and level-up system.

I actually don't. I know exactly why they won't do that.

They aren't RPGs if there is no character building with statistics.
That is the very basic requirement of being one.

There are people who seem to believe just randomly throwing a jumble of numbers togethers makes an RPG, rather than having a system that uses numbers to simulate reality.

The system doesn't need to simulate reality.
It just needs character progression either in the form of skills or levels and not just equipment.
For a game to be called a RPG it needs some sort of leveling even if it de-emphasizes levels over gear

That's just false though, character progression in those forms are not required for a game to be an RPG

Hmmm. How about some thought experiments?

What if FF8 started you off at lvl 99, but never told you it was level 99, it just hid the stat. So in essence, the game had no levels. And the rest of the game played exactly the same. Would it still be an RPG?

Now let's take a totally different game. Say we took Legend of Zelda, except all combat was instead decided through some sort of turn based interaction, thus totally abstracting your dexterity from the in-game performance. Would it now become an RPG?

"What is an RPG?" is always a pointless conversation. Now, what is a CRPG or a tabletop RPG? That becomes a more interesting conversation, and when I think of true RPGs I think of RPGs that are inspired by or directly come from tabletop RPGs (as CRPGs) did. There's a reason people apply tags like "action RPGs", or "JRPGs". "RPG" as a general term is fairly meaningless because of all the sub-genres.

My biggest and primary problem with purely gear based progression is that it seems less likely to let you straight-up stack new abilities/bonuses/etc. In a leveling system, you generally get ability A, then ability B, and so on, and have them all always. With gear, you're more likely to only have, say, one accessory slot, so you have to choose between the accessory with ability A and the one with ability B.

Secondarily, it just doesn't feel as conceptually cool to only be kicking ass because you got loot, while under that loot your character is still the same totally average guy with no special powers as always. Heroes with innate powers are cooler than heroes who get their powers from equipment.

Also, I like getting something for every monster kill other than simply getting them out of the way, and you can't really get the gear equivalent of a little EXP for every kill. Well, not unless it's a rare game where you improve weapons by getting kills with them, but then it's just leveling your equipment instead of yourself and it's effectively leveling again.

...

For some games I agree. In something like Monster Hunter, I really enjoy the fact that you are just a normal human, but in something like Final Fantasy I prefer the more standard leveling up system. Both can work, it just really depends on the game.

You don't necessarily need those exact implementations of character building. You can have character progression with the character's attributes, gear, abilities, or any combination of the those.

...

That's actually how the game I'm working on right now works.

It's:

On top of that, the gear is randomized Diablo style, and the combat system is Final Fantasy Tactics like, except the fights take place in the overworld itself.

I'm pretty excited about it, really.

Level ups only grant HP upgrades, and you have the option to turn your level down in order to increase the drop rates of pins, which grant you different attacks. Gear grants stat upgrades, but that's of minimal importance next to their passive effects. There is a way to grind stats, but there's a very limiting barrier on it until the post game. Doing well is less about having big numbers and more about creating synergy between your pins and gear.

You can do the same thing in SaGa Frontier if memory serves (T260G + associated robots. You have to build the party through the story though)

SaGa in general is level-free. It's not pure gear progression though. Stats are gained either randomly or are weighted towards what you used in combat depending on the title. The titles you can get over here in the west are

SaGa 1-3 (known as Final Fantasy Legend) (Game Boy)

Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song (Remake of RS1 on the PS2)
Romancing SaGa also scales enemies based on time. Time is pushed forward depending on how hard you grind/stat gain. Enemies are physically placed (as they are in most other SaGa games iirc) so you can actively avoid them

SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 (PS1)

Unlimited SaGa (If you're autistic) (PS2)

Romancing SaGa 2's remake is coming out over here too, but only on iOS and Android because Square Enix is too busy eating Lightning's asshole and reselling Kingdom Hearts to pay attention to their good RPGs

Well yah, you are making it you are so excited about it! Keep us posted.

I guess Terraria could count as something of an RPG but it's more akin to Zelda 2 on steroids + Minecraft.