This idea is excellent, but not, I believe, perfect.

I think a more workable arc would be start mid-level, with a moderate array of skills, get more and more skills and become the highest level at around the mid-game.

THEN the player's power level starts descending.

It could work very well, I think, in a singleplayer setting. I just don't see enough people, used to playing traditional MMOs, enjoying the idea of losing all the fun stuff as time goes on to actually create a good-sized playerbase. It would be an exceptional way to reinforce the gravity of a story though. Especially if you get most of your powers back at the very end.

Already thought of this myself and decided it's a horrible idea and you've totally missed the point, didn't read all 400 posts before but here is my bit.
As the game progressive not simply difficulty but COMPLEXITY should progress which is why different options are introduced one by one after you have got a chance to master them and starting with everything has a vengeful learning curve and would simply take too long to set up at the beginning.
A good game either scales the enemies to match your level (think oblivion but hopefully better) or scales them according to your skill (max payne), the claim that RPGs becaome easier as time goes it is a very weak generalization but I'd expect that from yathzee as he doesn't like games and would prefer to play with books and storylines and other junk.
Alternatively you could do a guild wars with practically no leveling and instead just balanced skills that allow you to specialize instead of improving like a vast array of different level one characters to be earned in game. You were kidding about the degenerating to a pea shooter right? It would be novel for a little while then simply boring.

Ya know I think Yahtzee is wrong about this. His main argument is you get stronger and stronger in RPG's so the difficulty goes down...

He fails to realize that a developer with any skill gradually increases difficulty as the player gets stronger and more bold.

His theory = fail

I think that if this RPG came out, I would play the shit out of it. And I'm not an RPG guy in general.

Needing to depower the gamer just to keep things interesting sounds like bad/lazy game design to me.

Reminds me a lot of my strategy game playthroughs. AI spams units with no need to maintain or pay costs, while my elite cadre of units is usually dwindling late to mid-game, while they keep creating more at a higher XP then mine.

@people above me: Are you not capable of understanding the actual play in a way that makes sense? YOu know, not eating for several days while you cleave cleave cleave through hundreds of soldiers ends with you drooling in agony instead of you grinding. In some ways, this game would remove the worst bits of a RPG, the grinding of levels in order to destroy things with little rhyme or reason.

Yahtzee Croshaw:
Extra Punctuation: What if We Leveled Backwards?!

Yahtzee's crazy idea for RPGs that might actually work.

Read Full Article

Wonderful article. You can even pull this for shooters.

After hours or days of fighting, (assumingly) less and less food, and very little sleep, you should make it harder and harder to aim as the day goes on. Your character shakes, can't run quite as much as they could at the beginning of the level/game before being tired, breathes heavier, can't throw as far. Little touches to make a real "Realistic shooter"

This idea has been done (kind of) in Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne in the Undead campaign.

Arthas begins losing levels as he approaches the Lich king's throne.

Over a long period of gameplay, my major concern would be the fact that the player might cease to earn a sense of achievement. A sense that they're work has paid off in growing stronger.

At any rate, its a fun concept to mull over.

Yahtzee just described the game and mechanics that will finally bring video games under that greatly desired and much sought after description of "Art." Someone MUST design this game!!!

I can see this working very, very well for a well designed single player game. I have trouble imagining it working in an MMO tho.

This is a surprisingly well thought out idea (now surprisingly because it's well thought out-this is Yahtzee after all-but just because it makes so much sense).

Thanks Yahtzee, I had ideas for a game like this but now I can't make it because I'd be accused of stealing your ideas.

ScotRotum:
Already thought of this myself and decided it's a horrible idea and you've totally missed the point, didn't read all 400 posts before but here is my bit.
As the game progressive not simply difficulty but COMPLEXITY should progress which is why different options are introduced one by one after you have got a chance to master them and starting with everything has a vengeful learning curve and would simply take too long to set up at the beginning.

You are making the assumption that complexity has to lie in the construction of the character in an RPG, which is just not true.

A pure leveling backwards game woudl make you seek other solutions other than fighting.
Running away would become mandatory.
I once had this thought 3-4 yrs ago.
No one woudl want to do one though... except maybe Nippon Ichi.

therandombear:
Either I've dreamt it or I've played it no idea tbh..>.<
A game were you start of as mighty and powerful, and as you progress you do get weaker and lose abilites and have to rely on your "ability" to hide and sneak past enemies.
I feel like I've played something like that, but alas I can't really remember.

In Deus Ex, stealth was a primary gameplay mechanic because combat was clunky and you couldn't hope to go toe-to-toe with some foes - which is how it should be.

There's a better name for 'leveling backwards', its called "attrition", and it is common in warfare. You won't find it in COD, where attrition manages to work in reverse: WWII era grunts somehow manage to get a .357 revolver which wasn't developed until 1967. There was a cool MMO called Combat Arms where drops from too high could cause lasting leg damage - that was a good start. Those developers now do.. I've forgotten the name but its pretty cool too.

It would be amazingly easy to create a (single player) FPS that works with attrition. Start with a realistic framework like STALKER, but add more realism to the weapons and to injuries received. [Very few FPS games to date have realistically modeled ballistics, and not one gets close to authentic noise or heat levels. Injuries? I will never ever play another game where you can walk off bullet wounds!] For example, a sniper scenario: the first shot is the only one you get because you are going to be running the hell away. You can shoot more, but they will find you faster. You end up using stealth to limp back to the extraction point with various leg and arm damage from bullet wounds.

Similar would be amazingly easy for other scenarios - so long as firearms are realistic. You really, actually do have to change out the barrel on a SAW after a certain number of shots, because repeated firing through a super hot barrel has destroyed the rifling. That common act of maintenance takes much longer than the 2-second reload(!!!!) that you see in FPS MMOs. So it would make a lot of sense to be forced to discard your primary weapon (regardless of how much you liked it!!!) and continue on with whatever weapons are available in an FPS game with correct attrition.

Reality is hard, but realism can also be very rewarding. The first casualty in any firefight is the plan, and making combat more difficult (realistic) won't be fun for the same people that don't like the STALKER series. Yet that also makes it challenging and I keep going back to STALKER for more: the enemy has better armor than I do and a bullet to the head means its all over, just like it should be.

Good idea.

This reminds me of a sci-fi concept which I thought was from the predator films (but wikipedia doesn't seem to think so), in which veteran fighters deliberately use less advanced weapons as they get more experienced, to show their skills and win honour.

To put it into gaming terms, veteran players wouldn't have access to 'easy' spells - no spammable area of effects or full self heals. Instead they are reduced to more tricky abilities - skill shots, situation specific abilities, stealth, and abilities which take a lot of planning to use. This means a truly great veteran player could still go toe to toe with a new player and win - but they'd have to play perfectly, and it would be a great achievement.

I also like the other path everyone's been suggesting of gaining wisdom at the cost of everything else.

ScotRotum:
Already thought of this myself and decided it's a horrible idea and you've totally missed the point, didn't read all 400 posts before but here is my bit.
As the game progressive not simply difficulty but COMPLEXITY should progress which is why different options are introduced one by one after you have got a chance to master them and starting with everything has a vengeful learning curve and would simply take too long to set up at the beginning.
A good game either scales the enemies to match your level (think oblivion but hopefully better) or scales them according to your skill (max payne), the claim that RPGs becaome easier as time goes it is a very weak generalization but I'd expect that from yathzee as he doesn't like games and would prefer to play with books and storylines and other junk.
Alternatively you could do a guild wars with practically no leveling and instead just balanced skills that allow you to specialize instead of improving like a vast array of different level one characters to be earned in game. You were kidding about the degenerating to a pea shooter right? It would be novel for a little while then simply boring.

I too have thought this idea before I read the article, but I don't think it's impossible. If you look at western RPGs in the D+D vein, you gain points to assign to attributes like strength and dexterity and so on, as well as points to add into skills.

If you wanted to 'level backwards' (although it's easy to understand, it's actually a terrible way of putting it), you'd deduct attribute points but add skill points as you got more experience. So you became more skilled but less able. The idea is that you could learn everything but there's only certain things you could actually do - if you see what I mean?

I think 'levelling backwards' would be a great way of making a game that plays on the theme of getting older. You'd start the game at the peak of your physical powers but with little experience, but as you get older one decreases whilst the other increases. Imagine being 70 years old, and the enemy you could easily defeat in your 30s is now a boss level character. It'd be far more interesting as a story experience, but yeah, it would require a sense of progression. It's something for a skilled design team to consider

To those saying the game would lose mechanical depth at the end... not necessarily. With certain stats (such as the aforementioned INT) rising those careful yet heart-wrenching decisions you make as to which skill not to keep would be more like trading two skills at 100% for one at 120%. You'd be expected to excel at that skill and use it perfectly*, accompanied by items.

Combat items in RPGs are typically worthless after the first few dungeons because you're spoilt by choice after that, and why use the finite combat item when you could just use that regenerating skill you just acquired? As players naturally hoarde junk throughout the game, item/gear choices increase throughout the game. But are typically ignored as skills provide a crutch. Wise expenditure of ingame currency, as opposed to crazy end-game "I fart gold" spending sprees, could suddenly become a major gameplay element.

And again, what a fascinating reflection of real life: a wealthy, elderly and wise man** desperately spending to rejuvinate his ailing body. So much money, but not enough to buy immortality. For those with a true taste for the macabre, the final form of the boss could be just coincidentally shaped like an illegally-sourced organ.

* Imagine your character as a Spathi Eluder equipped with a rapid fire sweeping laser only usable when stationary and shields. If I had to pick one out of the BUTT and the two additions above, I know what it'd be... You couldn't argue the game has gotten more shallow when the shields and the laser are removed.
** A generic male protagonist because I feel keeping some tropes consistent would more effectively contrast all the RPG tropes challenged.

I like this idea, it would require the player to develop things like patience, tact, and cunning in order to get through the game.

It is definitely an interesting idea. However, if executed it would uproot an important analogy to life which RPGs uphold: a persons' ability to become more than he is.
The capacity to endlessly grow into something greater, that one might effect the world in ways he otherwise couldn't. That is the reason I have been playing RPGs most of my life.

Do not to mistake me for a fan boy or anything; I actually think most RPGs are Nothings better off not wasting the worlds' space. Gold is gold because it is exceptional. Otherwise it wold be just a weak, yellow metal.

I actually disagree with yahtzees premise that the idea will probably never be done. sooner or later someone in the games industry is going to realize that most people are self-hating, miserable parasites who prefer the sight of a god being stripped down to nothing than a mediocrity growing to become a god. It would sell very well. But that doesn't give it any merit in my eyes; the opinion of the masses means as much to me as a mob of sheep's opinion on which direction they should relocate.

itd be a cool idea to have an ability tree called "godly powers" (or something a bit more poetic)filled with powerful techniques. as the game progresses your character loses thier godly techniques having to rely on more human abilities.

the human abilities wouldnt be very powerful but they leave room for imagination in strategy.

if it was an mmorpg it would encourage people to team up a lot more imo. when i played wow i didnt make friends because id level up quicker on my own. if you're "leveling down" constantly and fights are becoming harder it eliminates the want to do everything yourself.

i think, your homeland is a place where demigods go to retire from a life of being a hero or something along those lines. say after you escape from whatever has invaded your homeland you are given the option of remembering what you were when you were just a man like anyone else, and that is when you choose your human class.

it wouldnt be defeating the whole purpose if you were given the option of buying new human skills from a trainer, i mean you are losing your powers and levels anyway.

I just had an idea that belongs on this... well... for lack of a better word I'll call it a blog.
What if it went beyond just leveling up backwards? Nobody said leveling had to be a strict, linear path. It could jump around from weakling to demigod to weakling to mediocrity to anywhere.
what if in a game like Shadow of the Colossus you could, at various points, experience things from the point of view of the colossi?
Lumbering about playing Godzilla with the world, shaking suicidal adventurers off your back. And then going back to being puny and insignificant. It doesn't even have to be strictly within the size and strength category.
You could go from divine hero to insignificant nobody, and vice versa. Mannerly gentleman to barbaric brute. Fire to Ice. Air to Earth. Man to Machine to woman to child.

A game themed entirely on extreme contrast.

...'tis only food for thought.

While I think this idea sounds very promising, I also agree with the many others here who don't think it would do well in MMO form. For this kind of concept to work, it seems to me like it needs to end at some point.

I thought of a different way that you could "level down" than the way described in the article. You could start out in a group, with maybe 10-15 characters in it. As you progress through the game, the members of your group either die or leave the group for other reasons. In the end you're the only one left, and your character decides to retire or something.

I think this idea would be easier for most gamers to like, as it's not your own character that is weakened per sé, but the entire group is weakened due to the the loss of members.

Don't we already level backward in that, as your character is pushed to the limit, you find yourself losing health potions/packs, amo, your weapons degrade and become less effective, etc.?

I would feel a sense of progress if they just take my stuff from me as time goes on. I like that, as a game progresses, maybe I find some kickass armor or weapon. I like that and don't wanna lose it. That may be progress. It doesn't feel like success.

It sucks that you don't play RTS, because you might find the afore-mentioned "Arthas leveling backward in Warcraft III" levels amusing.

Great idea. Punishing the player instead of rewarding them. It will definitely keep them on their toes. People get complacent when they are constantly praised for their achievements. Society would function so much better if, every time someone completed a task, they got punched in the face.

No, I do not think having only one button to mash is a goal to work towards. I think it makes far more sense to introduce new mechanics, but make the enemies strong enough as you go along that you actually need to employ them. Developers should be aiming for complexity, not difficulty.

I somehow can't shake how awesome that game'd be. Though maybe come up with something more interesting or creative than sustaining injuries that make you weaken. Like, have a cutscene in the begining where the main guy's hit with a spell and... I dunno, slowly goes from being a seasoned warrior to... a novice? Or better yet, gets younger the longer he takes, thereby throwing in the whole sense of impending doom countdown thing like in Majora's Mask.

Yahtzee Croshaw:
I'd played a lot of games with RPG elements where the game gets easier and easier towards the end as you gain more and stronger powers, which is failed design because games are supposed to have escalating difficulty curves.

I contest this. It's like saying 'games are supposed to have weapons.' Maybe most games should have escalating difficulty, but not all of them. Off the top of my head, I'd tentatively give the example of Limbo or Portal - I never ever felt that those games grew more difficult, simply more complex. How is that not the same thing? I'm not quite sure, to be honest. :)

I find that a game (RPGs especially) in which I level up but so does everything else (so that there's "always a bigger fish") kinda spoils the fun for me. Why would I want to always be the smaller fish? I didn't sink 160 hours into a game just so an auto-levelled enemy can make me feel like victory was the providence of Lady Luck and not the result of my dogged determination to cleanse the desert of cactaurs.

Now, a game where your increased powers have consequences such as people seeking your protection/destruction would be cool - enemies who have an individual, personal reason for leveling up (ie to be capable of kicking your overpowered ass, because 2 in-game years ago you bought the last of the Miraculous Medicines in their town and their Mum died for lack of it) and have been dedicating themselves to it is much more enjoyable than 'Oh gosh, I'm glad the level 80 lizard-men in this plot-dictated-location never thought about stepping outside the area for the easy pickings of level 10 adventurers.' (Or at least have geological reason for the condensed areas of high-level enemies. Put them on an island or something!)

But even these enemies shouldn't be the 'unkillable until X plot point' kind, they should just be incidental possible enemies seeded into the game as a result of player action. And the player should, after being attacked by the grief-wrecked son or daughter, be fully capable of choosing mercy or saving themselves the hassle and just ending them immediately.

So what's to stop your over-powered character from wading in and laying the smackdown on the main enemy? Well, I don't see why a well-prepared player should be forbidden from an easy final-battle win, but there are plenty of non-combat ways to stagger conflicts. Have the enemy realise that the slab of mana-crackling muscle is coming for them and run the hell away. Have political obstructions or consequences for killing the main enemy 'too early', similar to how choices during the game results in different endings - if you hold out and waste him when he's in a public area, his/her evil influence is shattered. Or, if you kill him before you yourself have established yourself as a hero/lawful murderer, you then face the unhappy reality of being reviled or a fugitive etc.

...And I've blah-blah'ed on much longer than I intended to. :) I just wanted to say: More and stronger powers, with which to stomp all over lesser mortals, is not flawed design but fun.

VondeVon:
Off the top of my head, I'd tentatively give the example of Limbo or Portal - I never ever felt that those games grew more difficult, simply more complex.

Well I just finished Portal for the first time today and I can say it grows somewhat more difficult. Mostly because you don't even start with a portal gun (at this point it's very easy) until eventually you get the gun but only one portal (these puzzles require some thinking, but not much) and finally both portals (at which point you have to start thinking). Then it introduces the turrets but doesn't get much harder from this point.
Anyway, I had a different plot in mind. It's sort of like reverse zelda. You start off after just having beaten the villain, and you now have to return home with the princess. Along the way you must return all the items you gained back to their previous owners, so you'd obviously lose those, and all the questing takes it's toll and you gradually grow weaker. This is aided by the fact that since you used up all your resources on the way, there are very little health potions (and the like) left for you to use.
I wish this game existed. Sadly, I have no idea how to make a game.