In Defense of “Gamification†in RPGs
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RPG developers do not use leveling systems because we are poor, misbegotten souls who poured years of our lives into making and refining them.
Do you know how long it takes to code a leveling system? Less than an hour. Maybe two if you get really fancy with it. And if you're going to spend years making a game, don't you think you would suss out something as fundamental as (should this game have leveling) prior to spending months or years of balancing the thing? Further, I'm not even going to chance a guess at what convoluted method one might use to render a skill tree (invisible.)
Let me be blunt. RPG developers do not add leveling or skill trees into our games by accident, then fail to remove or hide them because of loss aversion bias. We add them quite deliberately because they lend a game a different sort of play experience. Levels and skill trees are a way of forcing the player to sculpt her character over time, making permanent trade-offs in the way the character develops. The player needs to be able to see what areas her character has developed in, and what choices she faces as she continues the character's development. That is not gamification for the sake of gamification that is central to what an RPG is.
