True progression is when the player learns something and applies it, such as learning the timing of an enemy’s attack, solve puzzles, learn to do more precise platforming.
When you come back to face challenges that you have already faced you beat them with ease because you have learned them.
Fake/False progression is when your character becomes stronger or you have better equipment, if you come back to face a low level enemy you beat him with ease now because you kill him with one or two hits and he doesn’t do any damage to you.
Obviously the “Feke/False progression” said like this seems like a bad thing, but it’s always a question of how it is used practically in the game.
For example if your character is stronger from a narrative point of view fake progression is a cool tool to make the player understand that, Dark Souls uses levels in this way, Leveling up in Dark Souls means consuming souls, and souls make the character stronger not only from a gameplay point of view but also from a lore point of view.
Being stronger in Hollow Knight is a direct consequence of your sharper sword, and charms which are “physical” items in the game that actually exist in lore.
Of course in NRFTRW gems and enchantments really exist, and XP is a bit more vague can be interpreted as your character becoming stronger through the physical and metal effort required to defeat enemies.
But I find that Fake progression is very often overused or overturned.
When it’s overturned you get a “power fantasy” Most RPGs fall into this category especially in the final stages of the game including NRFTW. Your character has become so strong that everything becomes easy, and it’s satisfying at first but then it becomes boring.
Is overused when there is no reason for the mechanics to be introduced, for example in Dark Souls you can upgrade weapons and even armor but upgrading armor is not a very satisfying mechanic and then in fact it was removed in the sequel.
I would say the same for NRFTW, the level of the ships causes more disadvantages to the game than advantages.
Fake progression is problematic when the player beats the obstacle, not by learning but because the character is strong, and it’s even worse when the player is fooled into believing he’s getting better when in reality the game is getting easier.
Fake progression can be problematic on a psychological level because the player is conditioned to believe that the time he spends playing the game is rewarded by the fact that the level goes up when obviously you should play the game because the game is fun not because the number goes up, but you also see it in some posts in this forum, which ask that the level cap should be removed, some of These players have been subjugated, so much so that they believe the game isn’t worth playing if they can’t keep leveling up. when obviously if the game is not worth playing without the levels, then the game is not worth playing even if the levels are infinite.
If you level up and the enemies level up with you, nothing changes, it’s just the number that goes up. If you level up endlessly and the enemies don’t, then you’re ruining the game by making it inexorably simpler until you get bored.
And then in a lot fo games I ask myself can we also stop with this farce and start with all the appropriate stats from the beginning leaving only the components of the builds as the only false progression.
if I lv up my strength and my damage goes from 100 to 110 damage but then the enemies I encounter afterwards have 550 health instead of 500, nothing has changed (Obviously this is a simplistic example).
Is it worth making the games more complex for this gimmick?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but often developers add similar mechanics because they’re a commonplace, not because they’ve really thought about it thoroughly.
RAIN WORLD one of my favorite games has no Fake progression, and you don’t miss it, and it makes the game much more playable, simple to develop and balance, and makes the world seem much more real.
Sorry if I went on too long xD.