Tactica Online Interview
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Q: How does RPG elements come into play and how do character level?
Luke: As in most RPG's, characters are defined by their skills, stats, and equipment. We wanted to offer something different from the traditional "kill things, numbers go up, kill bigger things, numbers go up more" experience - that's fun, but there are lots of games you can play for fun like that. We decided to go in a different direction, where character development wasn't about getting stronger, but about gaining a deeper understanding of your abilities and how to use them. Accordingly, you can raise or lower any of your character's skills or stats at any time, and the real emphasis is on designing a squad of characters that work well together. While you start with most skills available to you, successfully completing missions will reward you with more skills and equipment, so there's still a bit of the "rewards make you better" process that traditional RPG's have, but "better" in this case means having a wider range of abilities to choose from, not being able to swing your sword harder.
This means character's don't level up in the manner of traditional RPG's. A character's level is a direct reflection of their capabilities, so it can go up and down as you give that character more skills or take skills away (perhaps to allow space to add a new character to a squad). As such, it's more an indication to your opponent of how tough this character might be, than an indication of how far they've progressed.
