Board Thread:The Gatehouse/@comment-50.155.230.30-20140329020756/@comment-24424585-20140330014901

Waldere wrote: I'll be the odd one and throw my hat in for number one.

Thinking about Habit as a part of my life in the future, my big long-term goal after I've collected every pet and mount is to stack the "Start a New Adventure" badge as many times as I can. I thought it was a brilliant design choice to make that a stacking badge, and to make it so that the only way for someone who's reached 100 to stack it is to reach 100 again, because it creates a sort of prestige system. You can see how many times you've successfully scaled the mountain - that is, reached the level cap and reset.

With the level cap gone, so is the motivation to Start a New Adventure. Rebirthing no longer represents another attempt to complete Habit's ultimate challenge; it just becomes an arbitrary decision, one likely fueled by boredom. "Hmph. I'm level 593. It's been a while since levels actually meant something. Guess I'll rebirth, or whatever."

Which raises my other point - I want levels to mean something. I get that people like seeing their level increase, and want to retain the level up heal functionality. However, what makes HabitRPG special is that progressing actually has in-game implications. You get stronger. The way you interact with your tasks changes. I played another gamifying app before I found about Habit, but I ended up leaving it because leveling up meant nothing. Sure, my level number increased, but I didn't feel like I'd progressed in any way. There wasn't enough "game" to it. If I were to level up in Habit and see no change of any kind to my character, I think I'd start to feel the same way.

Again, though, I understand that some people truly are motivated simply by climbing to higher and higher levels, and I don't want to spoil their fun. However, de-valuing the Rebirth mechanic by removing the clear cut-off point would spoil some of mine. I'm thinking the Rebirth achievement won't state what level you got if you went past 100... just that you got to 100 or higher. So I'm not sure how it would devalue the Rebirth mechanic. When you decide to Rebirth will have no effect.