I have played many games with some form of character advancement system (hereby known as CA). RPGs especially use CA systems. This is, in my experience, a good thing - your character becomes more able as the game progresses, and this tends to make the game experience more enjoyable and believable - after all, if you have the same resources and abilities throughout the game, then why do you not go straight for the BBEG and ignore the other bits of the game? Additionally, if the character starts with a few resources and abilities and slowly gains more, it allows the player to familiarise themselves with the game properly - giving the player a lot of things from the start would overwhelm them, and they may not be able to experience the game experience fully. Thirdly (and althogh it is the last reason listed here, it is not the last reason for CA systems), there is the ego aspect - while an ordinary character in the game world would find certain challendes hard or impossible, the protagonist (and by extension, the player) can strike them down with ease.
The most common method for this, in my experience, is the experience system. By performing certain in-game actions (like killing enemies or going to certain places), the player gains experience points. They cannot be used for anything (or have very few uses), but once the player accumulates enough, they go up a level, and become more powerful. This has advantages in that it as the player performs regular in-game actions they advance, without having to interrupt the play experience. However, it does have disadvantages, and the player tends to be rewarded more for overcoming bigger challanges. However, it does have its disadvantages, too. The player may be tempted by their ego into powergaming - they do things that are against the spirit of the game (such as kill everything in sight, but it varies from game to game) in order to become more powerful. Additionally, there are immersion problems - the character fetched the macguffin, so he/she now has more hitpoints?
Another CA system involves advancing individual skills through use. For example, a character becomes better at throwing things by throwing thins a lot. This has its own advantagse and disadvantages. Its advantages are that the immersion is generally better - hitting things has no effect on how persuasive your character is. The character reflects the playstyle of the player. It also makes the gameplay a bit more intuitive - if you want to be better at hitting things, you must practice hitting things. However it does have disadvantages. Instead of finding one relatively tolerable way to powerlevel, a player who wants to be the best will have to deal with multiple ways of powerlevelling, which makes the overall experience less enjoyable. Finally, it can be very counterintuitive - I would expect that using tactics and skill to kill an enemy in one hit would mean more advancement than killing it the long way.
In summary, then:
-CA makes games more enjoyable
-some CA systems are counterintuitive
-some CA systems are non-immersive
-when playing games with CA, the player's ego wants to make the most powerful character possible
-making the most powerful character, the player needs to exploit the CA system, by powerlevelling
-powerlevelling tends to be less enjoyable than playing the rest of the game
-if the player powerlevels, then can remove the fun (by removing the challenge) of the rest of the game
-the player often is stopped from completely enjoying the game by their own ego
So what is the point of this thread? Well, I created this thread for a discussion of CA systems. What CA systems have you played, and what were your thoughts? which are better than the others? Is there a 'perfect' CA system (intuitive, immersive, playing the game immersively and intuitively is powerlevelling)?