What should leveling up get you?

[Diggles]

Yeah we've talked about this topic some before but I'd like to get into specifics.

A max level (or max skill) swordmaster does how much more DPS than a brand new player?

15% more?
100% more?
1000% more?

I imagine we'd tend to agree that it should be on the low end, but how low? I mean, 15% sounds good to me but I wonder if the MMORPG crowd would become disenchanted with playing for 6 months and only having their DPS increase by 15%.

But 100% is a lot, especially if hit points are increasing by 100% as well, effectively making the max level guy 4x more powerful than the new player. WOW is, I dunno, well over 1000% improvement, anyway, from newbie to maxed out character.

EVE actually did a reasonable job of staying on the low end, but you could improve lots of different things by 10% each. In the end, a newbie still couldn't compete with the vet but he could catch up relatively quickly in some areas.

depends on the weapon or skill, just like in life, many are harder/easier than others.
midevial conscripts got pikes/halberds because all they had to do was stand there and hold it and let calavary impale themselves. Master martial artists have decades of muscle memory and thus reaction times so fast people thought they could see the future.

Using a sniper rifle to hit a target a mile away requires a year of specialized training, whereas someone can shoot a pistol at marksman level with less than a month's training.

Agility based bladed/piercing weapons are much harder to master than a brute force crushing weapon that you can hit someone anywhere with.
A trained solider could easily best 1 enemy using his katana, but present him with multiple attackers and unless hes highly trained he will likely die, because he hasnt learned how to flow in battle.



anywhere from 25 - 200%, but there are skills that could lessen damage taken of course (parries, dodges, blocks, hard body training, nutrition, first aid, etc)