Writing Tech Brief By HackerNoon
Meet the Writer: Hacker Noon's Contributor Radu Constantin, Software developer
Aug 26, 2026 · 8 min · 12 segments
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at…
Writing Tech Brief By HackerNoon
Aug 26, 2026 · 8 min · 12 segments
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at…
Radu ConstantinGuest
What was your latest Hacker Noon top story about? It was a story called, Designing an XP System for Real Life Skills.
As someone who, during his life, has gone from learning guitar, music production, riding motorcycles, learning programming, becoming a lifeguard, learning scuba diving, and many other more or less dubious activities, I have a deep interest in the subject of acquiring and mastering new skills.
You'd think that mapping the skill progression system from RPGs, such as the Elder Scrolls series, would be easy.
It is not, I'm venturing out into spoiler territory for the article, but here's my thesis in short.
The inner systems applied in Western RPGs regarding skill progression can't be fully applied to real-life skill acquisition.
We need to stop thinking about XP points and levels as measures of competence and instead regard them as measures of commitment.
I go into greater detail about types of progression and some of the math involved.
What was your latest Hacker Noon top story about? It was a story called, Designing an XP System for Real Life Skills.
As someone who, during his life, has gone from learning guitar, music production, riding motorcycles, learning programming, becoming a lifeguard, learning scuba diving, and many other more or less dubious activities, I have a deep interest in the subject of acquiring and mastering new skills.
You'd think that mapping the skill progression system from RPGs, such as the Elder Scrolls series, would be easy.
It is not, I'm venturing out into spoiler territory for the article, but here's my thesis in short.
The inner systems applied in Western RPGs regarding skill progression can't be fully applied to real-life skill acquisition.
We need to stop thinking about XP points and levels as measures of competence and instead regard them as measures of commitment.
I go into greater detail about types of progression and some of the math involved.
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