Red 5 Studios has gotten rid of MMO-style levelling up in its title, saying the design encouraged players to give up early in the beta.
”What that did, is it really disincentivized people from playing the game,” said lead designer Scott Youngblood.”The rewards were so far out that they just gave up. So one of the things I was looking at doing was increasing the rate of reward, giving players more tangible goals to achieve in-between levels. But then it dawned on me, well if we did that, what’s the point of having levels at all?”
After a redesign, Firefall now has a tier-based system that doesn’t limit players to a single class. Various branches can be levelled up, and if you become bored of your abilities, changes can be made quickly.
Firefall is yet to be given a release date, but should be released for PC in the not-so-distant future.