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[a.wd]

Crackdown

 

[tiebreaker]

Zestiria

 

[Justinh]

Quest for glory.

Razzle Dazzle, baby!

it'll always be Hero's Quest to me, though...

*pick nose

 

[kinn]

San Andreas as someone mentioned already. Also shows visible changes to your character. I think GTA 5 does this also,ie running a lot increases stamina, but doesnt show it visibly .

 

[Jackpot]

I really hate this type of leveling as although it makes the most sense - the more you do something the better you get at it - if the gameplay styles aren't perfectly balanced you get railroaded into a certain style.

For example Oblivion's sword use is way more useful in early levels than most other skill tress.

 

[Ikon]

EverQuest did this, not that it was one of the things I liked about the game. Raising your weapon skills to be able to hit anything was kind of crap and standing around casting the same spell over and over was mindless to say the least. Hey, I guess it gave you something to do while looking for groups/trades.

 

[ascii42]

Aggressive Inline. Stuff like ollie, spin, grind, etc. would level up based on use.

 

[Altered Juice]

final fantasy XI comes to mind

 

[Mr Nash]

This brings back memories of jumping everywhere in Morrowind to grind that skill. Just because.

 

[Desi]

final fantasy XI comes to mind

the way it was done in XI was nice too. It had a cap per level and when you were behind you would get raises quicker. Summoning Skill and guard were still shit to raise regardless.

 

[blackjaw]

Morrowind

I use to hide in a corner and leave it for days to max sneak level...haha

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

every time its in a game this ends up happening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNHjgd2k8l8&list=RDHNHjgd2k8l8

 

[JoshHood]

Sort of along similar lines, Wolfenstein TNO gives you more stealth abilities for example the more you use stealth, and the same for a couple of other trees.

 

[bathsalts]

I like what Path of Exile does by evolving this system with their gem thing.

 

[Zolf]

Skill leveling through usage was the main component of character progression in Ultima Online; there were no overall character "levels", just skill levels that progressed as they were used. Characters had a maximum of 700 skill points that they could gain, after that point, another skill would atrophy if you gained skill elsewhere (at first this was not controllable, but eventually they allowed the player to specify which skills they wanted to keep/lock and which they would allow to drop or rise).

 

[Death Penalty]

Does anyone actually like this mechanic? It forces you to use weak things to make them stronger, leading into a positive feedback loop where you continue to use the same skills over and over because they're the only ones that are strong. It prevents you from exploring other options, because those skills are much weaker than the ones you've been using for a long time.

It can also be a little bit of a trap, if you start a game with a, for example, sword thats +1 damage, and a bow that's significantly weaker, you rely on the sword until you find a better bow. Only to discover that the bow will always be weaker, because you never found one that's stronger than your sword with skills.
You're the forced to grind...and that should never be the answer.

How is that different from only using swords because you've invested too many points into swords on a system where you choose for yourself? If you want build diversity or different skills you're going to need to pursue them in either system. The method you use to level them is the only difference.

Personally I love these systems but tend to agree that things like Oblivion's system took it way too far. The key benefit of this system is that it can make leveling dynamic and really fun, and making it monotonous squanders that potential.

 

[SkyOdin]

I'm really surprised that several people have mentioned Final Fantasy 2, but no one in this thread has mentioned the SaGa games, which heavily refined thise same ideas over an entire series. In SaGa games, by using a sword in combat you increase the rate at which you gain stats that are appropriate for a sword-user. At the same time, every attack you make with a sword comes with a small chance of unlocking a new sword skill. Using more powerful sword skills let you unlock even stronger ones.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

One of the very first games to do this:
Wasteland 1

 

[Aquillion]

It's always hilarious how people misuse this mechanic in Elder Scrolls games and then complain. The skills define the class, not the other way around, so if you specifically make a class that levels from running and jumping, you end up with a level 100 athlete who knows nothing else. And then the game scales to your level regardless, so your character is useless against level 100 enemies.

It's a fantastic way to punish min-maxers.

It does sometimes cause problems even if you're not trying to exploit it, though. I remember in Skyrim I would pick every lock I came across, and after spending a while in one town I hit 100 lockpicking (without ever intending to.) Suddenly every enemy was drastically more powerful than me due to level scaling.