Favorite Upgrade System?

[Dooshkin]

Sometimes the best part of a game is unlocking that new upgrade. Leveling up. Unlocking new equipment. Learning new attacks. Etc, etc.

What's your favorite upgrade or upgrade system?

[Shinobi13]

The one that uses experience and makes you level up.

[Dooshkin]

Either that means "I love all RPGs" or it means "I am a troll".

[Simon Strange]

I love the skill system in Dungeons of Dredmor. Pick 7 skills - each gives a LVL1 bonus - a few stat points, spell, passive ability, etc.

Each character level, you can increase one of your 7 skills by one rank.

Most things are good, so it's a crazy juggling act deciding what to get at what point. Do you put your first 6-7 points into one skill to max it out? That can be awesome, but you're missing out on all those sweet, sweet LVL2 abilities...

I'm also really fond of City of Heroes. Get new powers when you level up - no equipment, etc to worry about. That made it really entertaining to imagine various build sequences... did a LOT of that a few years back.

[Dooshkin]

I really like the Job System used in Final Fantasy Tactics. Each of your units has a role to play on the battlefield, depending on what Job you've assigned to them. Every time they successfully attack or use a skill, they earn EXP that goes toward leveling the character up, but you also get Job Points (or JP) that are used like currency to unlock any skills within their Job. Since the skills aren't unlocked in a "skill tree" manner, having enough JP can unlock their Job's most powerful ability first. It's a blast to shop through available skills.

Simon Strange, what platform is "Dungeons of Dredmor" on? Sounds interesting.

[Dexter345]

The job system from Final Fantasy Tactics (or FFV before that) is a pretty good one. I was actually thinking myself that the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X was pretty neat. Each character had his or her own general suggested path, but with enough work, you could customize characters to do things they aren't naturally good at.

It sort of homogenizes everything toward the end, where the only difference between the characters are their Overdrives, which is sort of a drawback, but the journey to get there is interesting and it gives the player a lot of control.

Borderlands had a decent upgrade system, where the level cap made it so any character could only really master two of their three possible trees, and even within the trees there were decisions to make, so two people playing as the Soldier could have wildly different functions in a team.

[MoreThanLuck]

Pokemon is pretty satisfying. Finally evolving a Pokemon like Tyranitar is so satisfying.

[Dooshkin]

Unlocking the wings in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is sweet. Going back through the earlier stages with the wings let you reach areas that were inaccessable the first time through, which often led to other upgrades like a larger knife belt or a Light or Shadow crystal. It sort of felt like Zelda, if it were ever an M rated game.

[djnealb]

Like Dex, I was also going to say the Sphere Grid from FFX. FFXIII's system was very much like the Sphere Grid (but with crystals, woo), so I enjoyed it a bit too. But I absolutely HATED XII's. It's like they took X's and said, "let's use something like the Sphere Grid but make it boring, nowhere near as nice to look at, and take away any semblance of individuality from all the characters. Yeah, I bet people will LOVE that."

Oh, and I, too, enjoyed the Job system in Tactics and FFX-2 (yeah, I'm one of those that enjoyed X-2). I also like upgrading weapons and magic in the God of War games. It makes all the violence so much more satisfying.

[Edd Strid]

Unlocking the wings in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is sweet. Going back through the earlier stages with the wings let you reach areas that were inaccessable the first time through, which often led to other upgrades like a larger knife belt or a Light or Shadow crystal. It sort of felt like Zelda, if it were ever an M rated game.

I remember reviews dogging LoS for this very reason, but I like a game where I can progress, get a new ability and then go back to some unexplored place in a previous level.

[Tremault]

favourite upgrades.... I really loved the systems in games like zelda 3 and super metroid.
I generally prefer for any upgrades to be functional and not arbitrary. also like in darksiders.
What i really hate is when a game gives me new moves continuously, like in MMORPGS. I am dyslexic so i have trouble adapting to increasing portfolio of moves.

What I really hate is when a game has upgrades that are made obsolete almost as soon as you get them. like in dead island and final fantasy 8 at the very worst case. things like elder scrolls and fallout 3 are guilty of this but not so much.

[Simon Strange]

Simon Strange, what platform is "Dungeons of Dredmor" on? Sounds interesting.

It's a PC game - only $5 new on Steam! The third expansion just came out - "Conquest of the Wizardlands." Totally awesome.

[toksik shok]

im going to go out on a limb here, and ill accept the heat for this.....prototype 2
i could of gone with your ff or any other rpg where you subtly increase your stats and slow become more bad ass, like the original and more so in prototype 2 every upgrade you acquire makes you that much more hard to the core until you get that last upgrade that, in my opinion, makes you truely appreciate the work, as little as it may seem, that you went through seem worth it.

[djnealb]

What I really hate is when a game has upgrades that are made obsolete almost as soon as you get them. like in dead island and final fantasy 8 at the very worst case. things like elder scrolls and fallout 3 are guilty of this but not so much.

I'm not quite sure how FF8 quite fits into that. Are you talking about finding upgrades that are just useless, period. Personally, FFVIII is my favorite Final Fantasy, but I wouldn't really say it has much of an upgrade system outside of just discovering new, higher level magic spells to draw from enemies to attach to your stats. However, I thought that they spaced the spells out pretty nicely. You start with Fire/Blizzard/Thundaga, go through a bit of the story, eventually find Fira/Blizzara/Thundara, etc. However, if memory serves correctly (I haven't played in several years) there are some spells that are just practically useless when junctioning to your stats. So if that's what you mean, then yeah, I hate it when a game has an upgrade that is practically useless and never gets used outside of the one time that you use once you get it.

[Tremault]

what I mean is, when enemies scale to your level.
you're running along happily gaining XP, then you go up a level, "hurrah, now i'm stronger!!" .. then you realise that all the enemies are also stronger and that your gear which had pretty good stats, is now useless against the upgraded enemies.

[TurboKill]

I kinda like systems from old school traditional RPGs where your upgrade is leveling up, and also earning enough money to get that new armor. Then Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World comes around and is the same way except it also adds branching skills and bonuses on level up.

However Monster Hunter is up there too. Being an action rpg with no leveling. It's all based on "leveling up" sheer skill and making your own new equipment. The game is a bit too much on the grindy-ness, but I love the idea.

[Simon Strange]

im going to go out on a limb here, and ill accept the heat for this.....prototype 2
i could of gone with your ff or any other rpg where you subtly increase your stats and slow become more bad ass, like the original and more so in prototype 2 every upgrade you acquire makes you that much more hard to the core until you get that last upgrade that, in my opinion, makes you truely appreciate the work, as little as it may seem, that you went through seem worth it.

I really want to like Radical - but I thought prototype (1) was a bit lackluster - especially in the upgrades department.

Can you explain what is different about 2 that makes it better? Do they fix the weapon system? (In 1, most of the weapons were indistinguishable)

[Muckfoot]

It wasn't the best implemented but the immediate effect you felt on Crackdown was great; like you could suddenly jump twenty feet higher or looked twice as big, or even the Agency Car you were in evolved in line with your level. That sense of feeling much more powerful is what makes a decent upgrade system, for me at least.

[Ravenia Darkfae]

I like elder scrolls morrowind (the TES before the mob scaling in oblivion) pretty much i liked the whole customizarion/intro, the various forms of how you get your stuff skilled up. pretty much in morrowind you had a set of major skills and a set of minor skills then the rest of the skills. Skilling up the major or minor = level up. But you can still skill up the ones you didn't pick. Also you had various ways to get skill ups. You could 1) explore ad skill up that way. 2) read books (if u knew the book list and location) 3) buy your skill ups from a trainer if you have the money. (and there was no cap to training per level like there is now only on the trainers level) tbh i wish they brought that back. having a skill level cap seems du,b and the new skyrim exp system is flawed with the perks. I'm in my 30s on there and still have alot of perk catching up to do. And i didn't speed burn all my skill ups. Only smith, enchant, and speach but only because these are slow to begin with reguardless of play style

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I like elder scrolls morrowind (the TES before the mob scaling in oblivion) pretty much i liked the whole customizarion/intro, the various forms of how you get your stuff skilled up. pretty much in morrowind you had a set of major skills and a set of minor skills then the rest of the skills. Skilling up the major or minor = level up. But you can still skill up the ones you didn't pick. Also you had various ways to get skill ups. You could 1) explore ad skill up that way. 2) read books (if u knew the book list and location) 3) buy your skill ups from a trainer if you have the money. (and there was no cap to training per level like there is now only on the trainers level) tbh i wish they brought that back. having a skill level cap seems du,b and the new skyrim exp system is flawed with the perks. I'm in my 30s on there and still have alot of perk catching up to do. And i didn't speed burn all my skill ups. Only smith, enchant, and speach but only because these are slow to begin with reguardless of play style