Experience Points: The Bread And Butter of RPGs

Video game have various terms and lingo that you'll pick up on if you become familiar with them, from those specific to certain games to those that concern genres or the entire medium. One of the key concepts for role-playing games is experience points and player levels.

As a bit of context, this post comes in response to the news that the upcoming Paper Mario: The Origami King will not have an experience points system. I will discuss that game later on, but will begin with a discussion of the system.

How Experience Works

Experience points is a remarkably simple feature. Every time the player characters defeat enemies or performs other actions (such as practicing skills or completing quests), they will earn experience points. After characters gain a certain number of experience points, they will level up and become stronger. Leveling up often increases a character's base statistics and/or grants new abilities.

In most cases, the experience requirements for lower levels are fairly low, but higher requirements require more experience, encouraging the player to fight stronger enemies. Alternatively, the amount of experience required for the next level remains the same, but the amount given depends on the difficulty of the task involved. For example, in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, a Koopa might give Mario four Star Points if he's of an appropriate level to defeat the enemy, but would give less once Mario becomes strong enough that the Koopa is no longer a challenge.

This system can come in many different styles, with each game utilizing it differently. In some games, level-ups may be relatively infrequent occurrences, but they may be more common in others; in the former, a player character may end the game at Level 20 or 30, while in the latter, that character might reach Level 70 or 90 before the end. Some games may give characters significant boosts in power as a result of leveling up, while others may have the characters' statistics improve more slowly. In the end, the execution is what matters most.

Why Experience Is Important

So why are experience points such an essential part of role-playing games? There are a few reasons.

The first reason, and one of the most important, is that they provide a reward for playing the game. Battles can take a toll on a player's resources, but as long as the player receives experience, money and possibly items for their trouble, the battles generally don't feel like a waste of time. There are many times when it's better to avoid fighting, especially when you can't win(Undertale deconstructs the concept of level grinding), but if you fight and defeat an opponent that's a reasonable challenge for your party, 

It can also be fulfilling to see your characters become stronger and capable of doing more. RPGs have a sense of delayed gratification, with you starting off fighting weak monsters and tackling mundane quests, but even those are a stepping stone to greater things. By the time you're facing legendary monsters and fighting to save the world, you feel as though you've earned the right to do so.

One downside of a system involving experience points, however, is that sometimes, the player has no choice but to level grind in order to become strong enough to proceed with the game. Depending on the game, it may be possible for monsters to be too powerful for players to feasibly defeat unless they're resilient enough to withstand their attacks and have the offensive power to deplete their health quickly. Many games can be completed on a "low level run," that not only eschews level grinding but even avoids all non-essential battles, but this requires a great deal of skill.

That said, the reverse is true. If players are having trouble, they can do some battles, gain levels and try whatever part they're struggling with when they are more than a match for their opponents. In this way, the decision of how long to spend leveling up can be a way of deciding how challenging you want the game to be.

There are other ways to get stronger in RPGs, from equipping better equipment to managing your skills, but they can often relate to leveling up. Equipment may not be usable unless a player has a certain level, while leveling up may grant abilities or skill points. Because of this, experience points and levels are as much of a part of a character's progression in RPGs as completing the main storyline is, so it can be difficult to imagine an RPG without this system or a rough equivalent.

Paper Mario: A Case Study

Now let's look at the Paper Mario series and how it changed over time. While Mario has appeared in many different genres, his Paper Mario subseries has changed drastically over time, to the point that one of the few consistent elements is the paper art style mentioned in the title.

The original Paper Mario, released on the Nintendo 64, was a bit of an oddity for an RPG. Like Super Mario RPG, and the Mario & Luigi series, it was a hybrid of RPG and platformer. Paper Mario had a non-traditional approach to leveling, since after gaining a level, you could choose to give Mario 5 Hit Points, 5 Flower Points(consumed when he uses a special move) or 3 Badge Points(which determines how many badges Mario can equip). Most of Mario's abilities, from increasing his offensive power to adding new moves or passive abilities, came as a result of equipping badges. As for Mario's partners, they could become more powerful by trading Shine Sprites in for upgrades that strengthen their attacks and grant them new abilities. That said, the system of experience points was still very much present, and combat was the primary way to strengthen Mario and his companions.

The GameCube sequel, The Thousand-Year Door, stayed true to the basic formula, but made many improvements to the gameplay, story and other features. One that deserves to be specifically mentioned is how partners were treated as like party members in their own right, rather than mere assistants who happened to get their own turns. Because of this, The Thousand-Year Door is one of my favorite GameCube games.

The Wii sequel, Super Paper Mario, became more of a platformer, with more linear levels and real-tie battles. Despite that change, along with the player alternating between four playable characters in lieu of controlling Mario and his partners, Super Paper Mario still kept the experience points system. The result did not sit well with some fans of the Paper Mario series until now, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Unfortunately, the next installment, Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS, was rather disappointing for a few reasons, notably the gameplay. The combat system was completely revamped, and required Mario to use expendable stickers to execute attacks and defeat his enemies. The battles no longer gave experience points, only coins and occasionally stickers, which were not always be enough to recoup what players spent in the battle.

Naturally, this design choice had consequences for the gameplay. With barely any reward for facing enemies, there is barely any reason to fight them unless there is no other choice. Avoiding battles should only be necessary if the player's party is weak, and retreating should be a last resort to escape from a battle that the player can't win, not the player's general modus operandi. It also doesn't help that bosses, which usually are a test of the player's preparation and offer experience rewards to match, are generally defeated with the proper Thing items, but that's a separate issue.

I never played the Wii U sequel, Paper Mario: Color Splash, partly because I do not own the console, and partly because Sticker Star deflated my interest in the Paper Mario series. However, I was interested to hear about a new Paper Mario game, and disappointed to hear that Origami King will likely repeat Sticker Star's mistakes. Perhaps we may learn more about the game once it is released, but any hopes people like myself had of a return to the original or The Thousand Year Door have been dashed.

Conclusion

A large part of role-playing games is about growing your character- leveling up, acquiring new gear, learning new abilities and honing your playing skills. As such, it's sadly ironic that the developers of Paper Mario have taken a step away from what made the first two titles so enjoyable, as well as a pillar of the RPG genre, by stripping away experience points and other RPG mechanics in favor of more simplistic gameplay. Innovation is important, but so is staying true to what makes game series and game genres enjoyable, so I hope that Paper Mario will one day "experience" a return to form.