I already partially addressed this in another thread, but I genuinely don't understand the appeal and usefulness of adding arbitrary levels.It's possible, but why not present this to player more intuitively than Lvl numbers?
I'll never understand this. You can see how passionate devs are and time and effort that goes into creating these believable, authentic worlds, down to the smallest details...and then they add these MMO features that, to be blunt, piss all over it.
Why not use implant to you this information: threat assessment based on physical/mental/etc condition, training and available technology. But no levels: npcs, quests or equipment.
It just feels so jarringly out of place.
In terms of appeal, as already pointed several times, it just ends making things more immersion-breaking and less contextually logical.
In terms of usefulness... Well, adding levels is actually usually more harmful than anything, especially if you are attempting to keep a non-linear structure.
And then you have tackled in solutions that attempt to "solve problems" that shouldn't have existed in the first place. "How do we solve the issue of the player becoming 40 times more powerful?". Well, what if we simply DON'T make him that powerful to begin with?
I mean, just look at Breath of The Wild. The game doesn't have any sort of character stats/stat growth whatsoever (aside from unlocking more health and stamina organically as you play) and yet the equipment alone is already powerful enough to break the balance in the late game.
Take Dark Souls (which uses levels very, very loosely): it's a game where no one could reasonably deny you are getting more powerful as the time goes, but it never reaches the point where you can go back, sit AFK o0r 30 seconds in the middle of two-three low level enemies and hope to come back and find your character alive.
It's also a game where you can theoretically go (almost) straight to end game content from the beginning and (while struggling a lot more) have a small but reasonable chance of victory.
This is the sort of balance a non-linear open world game should aim for.
Fuck to "Start the game with 30 HP and end it with 9999 HP" an thumbs up for "Start the game with 30 HP, end the game with 90HP and a lot more capable at dealing/avoiding damage".