Levels should be hidden. I used to play a lot of TF2, where’s only one way to know how good your oponents are – to face them.
Lost it here, you’re Colonel >100 now.
That old 'get rid of levels' debacle.
Theodoooore
(Theodoooore)
#63
[quote=“hypnotoad;171285”][quote=“Theodoooore;171272”]
How long can you expect to spend going up by 1 level? I have been on level 9 for a long time.[/quote]
You need 400k xp per level after level 9 or 10. Look at your XP/min in your stats and you can work your average time per level up out.[/quote]
I am a level 9 with 1,021,000 XP. Is that normal? It seems a little high.
Matuno1
(Matuno)
#64
[quote=“Theodoooore;171662”][quote=“hypnotoad;171285”][quote=“Theodoooore;171272”]
How long can you expect to spend going up by 1 level? I have been on level 9 for a long time.[/quote]
You need 400k xp per level after level 9 or 10. Look at your XP/min in your stats and you can work your average time per level up out.[/quote]
I am a level 9 with 1,021,000 XP. Is that normal? It seems a little high.[/quote]
That’s total accrued XP.
Mortylen
(Mortylen)
#65
I like my levels. It gives me (false) sense of progress and achievement which I lack in my real life.
Also, levels are additional info which I can use. If it were up to me, I’d like to see things like exp/min; kill/min; merc played % etc of my teammates/enemies.
If I see level 72 picking fragger with a squad of Fragger/Stoker/Arty I can basically tell right of the bat this guy is a carry and I should support him.
If I see level 4 with Vassili I can almost always discount this dude as NPC and play high impact merc like aura/kira/stoker/proxy to try to even the odds of our team winning since we are already one player down.
Levels help me a lot when trying to figure my place in a team. Do I need to carry or do I need to support that lvl 80+ wizzard with cobalt fragger. Can I count on lvl 6 aura to do her job or I’ll do it myself (hello Phoenix 
). Is there even a chance a lvl 7 buschwacker will do the obj or will he camp at his (badly) placed turret?
My point is, levels matter! It says to me = this guy has experience playing this game and on avg, he will be a more well adjusted member of a team than a lvl 7 weekend warrior.
Also, the social dynamics, people flock to high level players as their go-to-guy. They played this game for 1000+ hours, they know the odds and ends and very likely, they are good players and could lead the team to victory just by suggesting the next course of action/team composition/flanking routes/advising on plant locations etc.
Also, can’t discount the omnipotent EGO. When I’m highest level on my team, I feel the obligation to deliver and I play better, try harder. When I get stomped by lvl6 (with 1000+ hours in CS but that is beside the point) I, again, try harder. When lvl 100+ joins I often try to see what are these guys doing. What mercs they like in certain stages, what are their flanking patterns, wall jumps, how they melt the competition and I try to learn from them.
Keep the levels.
OmaGretel
(OmaGretel)
#66
@Mortylen All I read in that post is “Higher level = better player”, which is nonsense. Most people only improve very slowly after level 10 or so.
I keep running into that level 80+ guy who barely even manages to get his K/D-ratio above 1 in most games. And I have also seen many level 10-15’s carrying their team to victory.
The amount of hate that gets thrown at you simply for being high level is just ridiculous, no matter if you are playing good (“no life hacker spawncamper noob”) or just average (“lol high level noob l2p”). I can ignore most of the noobs, but it does get pretty annoying when you hear it every day. And I’m not even one of the super high level players (level 59 currently).
Something that displays some kind of skill-rating instead of levels would solve many problems with the current system.
Kakutov
(Kakutov)
#67
My idea is if we wanna get rid of levels then k/d stats shouldn’t be also shown. It could decrease the amount of toxicity in pubs.
Mortylen
(Mortylen)
#68
@OmaGretel I don’t believe K/D is at all relevant in this game. And that’s what I freaking LOVE about it! Sure, you better man up if you are playing carries but I rarely do. I stick to medics and/or engies. I agree with you that players improve very slowly when it comes to K/D after level 10 or so. Either you got it what it takes to be wizzard carry or you don’t and the progress in this regard is painfuly slow, I should know
BUT players ARE better with higher levels when it comes to dirty bomb in general. You almost never see lvl <10 auras suicide full charge reviving that fragger because he is key to the team and she has 4second to next wave. Hell, you rarely see them doing what are they supposed to do. You rarely see low level engies repairing/planting/defusing as their prime goal. Granted, they can’t do that if they’re dead but I often see good (dps wise) Buschwackers going for that tripple/quad/ace kill sequence isntead of going for the defuse/plant.
What I am saying, it comes down to experience when to shoot, when to run, when to revive, when to plant in this game and high level players undoubtedly have this experience.
And is nice to know, that level often provides this information.
So I would say “higher level = better DIRTY BOMB player”
not that he can outshoot u anytime soon, you all dirty CS wizzards 
BerylRdm
(BerylRdm)
#70
I’m barely lvl 38 and yet I’ve heard multiple times already that I should play ranked instead of “pwning lvl 10 in pubs”, so I can only imagine what happens when you’re a high lvl player. I also see how toxic players can be when they play with one. In addition to that I don’t see many reasons to keep levels. The only good purpose of them is to distinguish total newbs from more experienced players, but we can easily achieve the same (and even better) result without levels. For example by introducing a system of public ranks gained separately for each merc (old good idea). Plus you rank up faster by gaining the specific type of xp. For example, when you play Aura, you get 1x xp from healing, 0.8x from killing, 0.5x from repairing, etc. so in order to get higher rank faster you need to actually be a fucking medic, not an engi ; ) Also, for this system to work good, there should be only several ranks - it’s only purpose would be, as I said earlier, to distinguish newbs from people who played some time with certain merc. Also, these should only be visible to your teammates.
And this would actually be useful, imo.
bontsa
(bontsa)
#71
@Mortylen Despite disagreeing hugely on your standing about the levels, as I loathe them and would be happy to get rid of mine, your comment still brings up very good points about the system and is one of the first constructive pro-level arguements around, kudos!
All in all everything you said about levels being a tool for analyzing player interaction and expecting certain behaviour from them is something that I feel can be done with other systems than overall levels. Mercenary levels, visible Public Skill Rating, etc. would still give players insight on how to accustom their playstyle accordingly to their team’s expected experience.
Anything but this absolutely unfitting mechanic straight out from role play games thankyouverymuch, Splash Damage.
Icecoal
(Icecoal)
#72
Showing the lvl only creates negativity, lvl shaming and people giving up before the match starts and vote to shuffle, a lot of twinks out there pwning with lvl 8. It’s a good thing they gonna remove it
pumpaloaf
(pumpaloaf)
#73
Inspired by @Kaur’s text wall of level shame and after seeing this topic come up for the umpteenth time, I finally got around to making my own…
[img=http://s31.postimg.org/f55pg23nr/nodicks_levelshamed_2.jpg]
Mescman1
(Mescman)
#74
Totally vouching for getting rid of levels.
People get waaay too caught up on blaming the levels if they lose a game, it’s never the players fault anymore, “the game didn’t balance the teams well enough, that’s why we lost!!”.
Maybe if there were no levels, people would try harder instead of throwing in the towel automatically when they face some lvl 60 dude.
TheStrangerous
(TheStrangerous)
#75
Least give an option to hide levels.
As someone suggested here a while back.