Game Mechanics Leveling restrictions and how to fix them

I started playing the game a few days ago and I've been really enjoying it, but I recently began noticing a major issue with the game - the leveling systems. As I will explain in this post, I find that the leveling systems are counterintuitive to the nonlinear design of the game and make the game needlessly restricting. However, I believe they can be reworked to better players' experience with this server.

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Combat Levels:
The combat levels are used as a means of progression through the story. Quests can only be completed once the player reaches a certain level, which makes exploration off the beaten path essentially pointless. As the game progresses, there comes a bigger gap between levels, meaning that there is often only one objective to complete at any given moment since other quests can't be unlocked as easily as they are at the start of the game. Despite being designed like an open-world game, the combat system's prominence as a means of progression makes the game counterintuitively linear.

I would fix this issue by allowing players to do quests beyond the recommended level if they really want to. If they're underleveled, they will know what they're getting into if they decide to attempt them. Any story-driven quests that have a specific reason to be completed after others should have a prerequisite of having completed said earlier quest, as opposed to locking them behind certain levels. By doing this, players will receive a greater sense of freedom in the world, which the world was clearly designed to invoke in the first place.

Secondary Levels (Fishing, Farming, ect.):
The systems in the game regarding tools are almost never used because, once again, almost everything is locked behind getting to a certain level. For instance, you can't catch most fish unless you've grinded enough lower level fish, which nearly always requires you to backtrack to low-level areas. There is little reason to explore the world when every way you can interact with it is locked behind a level.

I think these secondary levels should remain in the game, but they should be reworked. Instead of locking the ability to interact with most of the world behind levels that can't be organically enhanced through progression, I think leveling should determine what tools you're able to use. To give an example, players should be able to cut down any trees they want with any axe, but stronger trees should take longer to cut and generally give lower-rarity wood to players unless players have cut down enough trees to use a higher tier axe. This, of course, should extend to fishing, farming, and mining. This way, players will be able to engage with the entire overworld, rather than being locked out of interactivity entirely unless they're willing to heavily grind low-level areas.

Tertiary Levels (Cooking, Tailoring, ect.):
These systems suffer from restrictions due to secondary leveling as well as their own systems of leveling. To cook better healing items, players are expected to grind many low-level recipes, which requires a lot of fishing and farming in low-level areas. Players cannot effectively use any of the 8 tertiary systems in the game if they aren't willing to grind in a low-level area, and as a result, those 8 systems are nearly never used because the ends simply don't justify the means. Consequentially, the game's economy is destroyed because players don't have anything to spend their money on.

Much like the secondary leveling systems, I believe the tertiary leveling systems can be reworked. No recipes should be locked behind leveling, but rather players should be incentivized to level up by giving them extra benefits for leveling up. Leveling up enough in alchemy could give higher chances of bonus hearts when brewing potions, and leveling up in armoring could give higher chances of additional perks added to armor that the player creates.

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I believe that these changes can benefit the game by giving players more freedom, more reason to explore the world, and more ability to interact with the world and its systems. There is a reason other open-world RPGs generally don't lock anything behind levels at all - players are supposed to explore the world at their own pace, and shouldn't be manually restricted unless there is a good reason to do so. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on my suggestions, or even some of your own suggestions if others feel the same way that I do about the leveling systems in the game.

 

These ideas are really cool, I like them!
The only thing I have to say is I kinda diss agree with what you stated in the quoted part above. The reason people don’t do profs (at least in ny experience) isn’t having to grind low lvl areas. I kinda like it cause it forces me to explore all around areas that I would have to otherwise so I’m not just staying in a couple 100+ towns
The reason is just that profs take such an incredibly long time to do it is kinda boring and many ppl just don’t have the motivation to do it
So I feel making it like u said wouldn’t fix profs at all cause it would take the same amount of time, just u wouldn’t have to go back to Raghu which doesn’t make that much of a dif imo

 

I read this expecting me to come out the other end simply saying "This is dumb for X, Y and Z." But, actually, yeah I kinda agree with everything.
I don't see why a player shouldn't have the ability to chop at a level 90 tree for 3 hours if they want to do so, especially if the XP given is scaled down.
I also don't see why a player shouldn't be able to attempt a higher-level quest, honestly, the difficulty of the monsters should be enough of a gatekeep, and honestly, if someone manages to do a higher level quest on a lower level character, then like good for them you know?

One thing I feel like I should add to this is certain quests do need a way to stop a player from doing them early.
A good example is a Journey Further, which just doesn't make sense unless the player is a higher level.

 

def agree with the post. to add to ur idea maybe have some quests as gate keeping quests?
So like you have
KINGS RECRUIT
bunch of other quests
yada
yada
yada
NEXT MAJOR STORY ARC QUEST
yada
yada quest quest
money
ETC
yada
yada
yada
JOURNEY FURTHER

you get the point yes? This could help keep the story in the certain progression while still letting the player do whatever quest they want within a limit, so a lvl 15 cant try and do lvl 60 stuff. but that lvl 15 can try 20-30 lvl range. the gatekeeping quests kinda do what the level reqs are doing rn but with more freedom to the player

 

Yeah, well maybe make all quests that are kinda important to the lore locked behind one and another.

 

a bit tangential but

given the current state of the game, in practice you often don't know what you're getting into. imagine if you went into a quest that you could not afford to die on whilst being several levels under. it's a great suggestion, but it's only worth implementing once the game actually forgives players for the occasional oversight.