First things first. First time post, and first time supporting anything like this. I sure hope the developers deliver! Now onto the subject matter:
My biggest complaint about modern MMO's (EQ added this with POP) is the linear gear progression available to the player. By doing this, developers add levels or restrictions that are not class or race based, and limit when you can equip per level. Not only that but as you level up, that hard earned gear is quickly replaced by: for example level 10 gear is replaced by level 11, 12, 13 gear...which in turn those are replaced by level 14, 15, 16 gear.
This may be easier balance around, but I find it to be a detriment to the genre (turns into a half-baked gear grind with items people don't care about). If a player wants to power level by twinking a character, then let them. This is providing options to a genre that's supposed to be about being open, and options. Tell the player that they are only allowed to equip level 1-5 gear at level 5 is removing those options.
I want to farm/buy myself a ghoulbane. A Wurmslayer. A pair or SSoY's. Some Deepwater gear...etc etc.. and equip it at level 1 if I so chose (twinking of course). Not some pre-determined levels/restrictions that keep the player from equiping these items.
If there was a system that made sense, like STR requirements, or INT/WIS requirements. I can except that, as that would make more sense than "you aren't a high enough level".
I sure hope Pantheon adapts the earlier days of EQ with itemization by removing what the modern MMO has introduced: Linear gear progression.
I think they are working with this mindset on Pantheon.
Agree 100% though. Been playing FF14 and its just amazing how generic progression is in all ways. If doing menial tasks isn't bad enough, I do it for +1 stat on each piece of gear, sometimes just minutes after getting the same piece of armor for completing a similar quest. Its just dribble. I feel like the people behind this sort of thing must have totally missed out on the early genre, because I can't see how anyone in their right mind would continue to emulate this horrible system over one such as EQ. I can't ever remember being excited about a quest reward in a modern game, or really any upgrade at all.
I am with ya on this for the most part. I don't want a level 1 to be able to wear literally the best raid dropped gear in the game, but I think a good chunk of raid stuff should be no drop/bind on equip anyhow . I did like in EQ how when the game was young a level one could be majorly twinked. They could wear high level stuff, they just wouldn't get the full benefit of it right away. Later on they made this more obvious on some of the stuff. If you equiped a high level item at a low level it would show the max stats on one side and next to it the stats you actually were getting from it like STR 2 (45) . As you gained levels you would get more and more of the benefit. When the game was super young you would get full stats of the item right away except for the AC part of it . As you gained levels your AC would keep going up even if your gear was exactly the same so I am assuming there was some sort of multiplier going on. At one time I knew but now it's fuzzy memories LOL.
I do recall a few months ago Brad mentioned you would be able to twink your characters to some degree and that is good news indeed ;)
Jason said:
I am with ya on this for the most part. I don't want a level 1 to be able to wear literally the best raid dropped gear in the game, but I think a good chunk of raid stuff should be no drop/bind on equip anyhow . I did like in EQ how when the game was young a level one could be majorly twinked. They could wear high level stuff, they just wouldn't get the full benefit of it right away. Later on they made this more obvious on some of the stuff. If you equiped a high level item at a low level it would show the max stats on one side and next to it the stats you actually were getting from it like STR 2 (45) . As you gained levels you would get more and more of the benefit. When the game was super young you would get full stats of the item right away except for the AC part of it . As you gained levels your AC would keep going up even if your gear was exactly the same so I am assuming there was some sort of multiplier going on. At one time I knew but now it's fuzzy memories LOL.
I do recall a few months ago Brad mentioned you would be able to twink your characters to some degree and that is good news indeed ;)
Definitely this, though I actually do think a level 1 should be able to equip anything. If the benefit of stats is gradual like it was in EQ, high level gear is still really great, but not nearly as powerful as it would be for a high level player. I do think gear that is locked away in some area with a prerequisite to access should be nodrop or require the player to have access to that area before being able to use it.
I'm just for whatever is realistic. I never liked the idea of just not being able to equip some piece of armor or it magically turning into a turd when I wear it because I'm lower level. The item is either good or its not. If its wearable by my class, then I should be able to put it on. Frankly I think anyone should be able to equip any piece of armor, however I think there should be appropriate drawbacks to doing so, like a caster's spells taking twice as long to cast wearing plate, or a warrior taking a ton of damage wearing cloth. Elements of realism are ultimately the things that many of us loved about EQ whether we realize it or not, and is part of the reason that we can't tolerate the current variety of MMOs that are anything but.
First off i agree to the Initial post but i would like to add some more stuff id like to see.......
I Would kind of like to see bind to Account type of Items Raid Gear and stuff, so at the end it doesnt matter which Char you play you got that item on your Account or should i call it you Avatars Soul=Account if you want to view it that way :) and can twink with it as you wish and maybe even the ability to link 2 Accounts from the same Person together and trade items between them, but that probably would arise a few problems with Ppls selling Raid items that way, if no good counter measures are found.But a Big Motivation for me to Raid was to be able to get AlternateAdvancement Xps faster back in ol EQ 1 means to be able to get stronger faster with better Gear. I never liked to Raid just to even Raid more.
About twinking, there should prolly be some sort of Dampener to the max Item power at low Lvls, but it should still be better then everything else you can find depends on how it would play out in the Game. If there could be a Balance found there it would be great. I kind of liked twinking in EQ with my Fungus Tunic, back then it was like God mode at low lvls, it was kind of fun and the Tunic was not something everyone had but it didn last forever at Higher lvls more Damage was Generated then the Tunic could Regen but for low lvls it was very fun to have it....good Memories :).
Like others have said, part of me thinks any class should be able to equip any item. You just should be penalized potentially big time in many circumstances if you do . Part of me though doesn't want to see wizards carrying swords and such, even if its just for looks in the downtime. I guess I am on the fence on part of this one.
As long as the item stats would make it worth to carry it for a Wizard why not.But i kind of like the Class role System so Wizards should do Magic Damage and most Swords prolly wont help with that much :).
Since without a Class System everyone is Part Healer/Damage Dealer/Tank at the end and grouping just doesnt work out well that way. Its more efficient to have Roles.
Dynheart said:
First things first. First time post, and first time supporting anything like this. I sure hope the developers deliver! Now onto the subject matter:
My biggest complaint about modern MMO's (EQ added this with POP) is the linear gear progression available to the player. By doing this, developers add levels or restrictions that are not class or race based, and limit when you can equip per level. Not only that but as you level up, that hard earned gear is quickly replaced by: for example level 10 gear is replaced by level 11, 12, 13 gear...which in turn those are replaced by level 14, 15, 16 gear.
This may be easier balance around, but I find it to be a detriment to the genre (turns into a half-baked gear grind with items people don't care about). If a player wants to power level by twinking a character, then let them. This is providing options to a genre that's supposed to be about being open, and options. Tell the player that they are only allowed to equip level 1-5 gear at level 5 is removing those options.
I want to farm/buy myself a ghoulbane. A Wurmslayer. A pair or SSoY's. Some Deepwater gear...etc etc.. and equip it at level 1 if I so chose (twinking of course). Not some pre-determined levels/restrictions that keep the player from equiping these items.
If there was a system that made sense, like STR requirements, or INT/WIS requirements. I can except that, as that would make more sense than "you aren't a high enough level".
I sure hope Pantheon adapts the earlier days of EQ with itemization by removing what the modern MMO has introduced: Linear gear progression.
I agree with this specifically in regards to end game. While leveling I am fine with some level based restrictions on gear BUT I do not want all gear to just be set to a specific stat allocation (which is what causes the problem you listed above). To be clear in what I mean, in Final Fantasy 11 (online game, similar to everquest) you would find that certain pieces of lower level gear was extremely valuable and in some cases a potent item clear up to cap and sometimes retaining value even at cap. Note that gear in that game was sortof like tools, they all had different use so while ive noticed some seem weirded out by a lower level item being better than some higher level ones it is not universally so and there were alternatives with just as much value. But at endgame yes, I definitely don't like to see just gears going up tier by tier and adding a set amount of stats per item level on a set formula.
Jason said:
Like others have said, part of me thinks any class should be able to equip any item. You just should be penalized potentially big time in many circumstances if you do . Part of me though doesn't want to see wizards carrying swords and such, even if its just for looks in the downtime. I guess I am on the fence on part of this one.
Serious dis-agreement here for me. Progression gear is the only way to go until end game to get players moving forward. Players that cant move forward stop playing and move on causing lots of problems. I have seen linier used in world designs but never termed in gear designs.
In a perfect world the best gear should be craft through items found on boss mobs and raid encounters. As far a mages wearing plate and tanks wearing cloth. Bad idea: reason is it points away from healers are healers and dps is dps. It points more to the road of multi classes per character changing your build on the fly like Rift/Archeage etc. Bad idea and many many threads pointing these bad ideas out.
There are plenty of games out there you can play if you want this so called new world MMO. This is suppose to be old style MMO and should stay the course.
~Chaam
Chaam said:
Jason said:
Like others have said, part of me thinks any class should be able to equip any item. You just should be penalized potentially big time in many circumstances if you do . Part of me though doesn't want to see wizards carrying swords and such, even if its just for looks in the downtime. I guess I am on the fence on part of this one.
Serious dis-agreement here for me. Progression gear is the only way to go until end game to get players moving forward. Players that cant move forward stop playing and move on causing lots of problems. I have seen linier used in world designs but never termed in gear designs.
In a perfect world the best gear should be craft through items found on boss mobs and raid encounters. As far a mages wearing plate and tanks wearing cloth. Bad idea: reason is it points away from healers are healers and dps is dps. It points more to the road of multi classes per character changing your build on the fly like Rift/Archeage etc. Bad idea and many many threads pointing these bad ideas out.
There are plenty of games out there you can play if you want this so called new world MMO. This is suppose to be old style MMO and should stay the course.
~Chaam
Not sure what you mean by progression gear, but if you mean to continually give players new items to replace those they only recently acquired, I disagree. Every game is going to have gear progression, but I think what many of us are against here is the shallow system that gives you ways to upgrade items on such a regular basis, the entire process loses its appeal. If people stop playing a game because they aren't being force-fed false rewards and praise, that means the process of acquiring those items doesn't appeal to them or needs to be improved. At the end of the day, you can't please everyone.
As to crafting the best items, thats debatable and not really consistent with your "old style MMO" proclamation, as EQ did not have this and did fine. I actually agree with you though, I think boss and raid mobs should drop normal items as well as components for crafting which yield a chance at even better items produced by a crafter. Its something that hasn't been done enough, and an opportunity for crafting and crafters to play a more prominent role in a virtual world.
Regarding mages wearing plate, its just a suggestion that points more towards realism, and was not meant to allow a class to play any role other than their own. If there are only drawbacks for a caster wearing plate, they won't do it, but I don't see any reason not to allow them to wear plate just as tanks could wear many robes in classic EQ (they just never did). I'm all for realism, but I don't see anyone here trying to suggest that we blur the lines between what roles each class should have. I'm just thinking outside of the box.
The problem with twinking in Everquest was that a lot of items had raw HP on them, and this could easily make a new character completely obscene in power compared to other people his level, now while I am not against this, I feel that a different approach could alleviate some issues.
Stamina in EQ gave varying amounts of HP to different classes, and also gave more hp once you gained level thresholds. Instead of giving people HP through raw HP statistics all the time, tend toward the side of stamina and then by twinking your low level character, you will give them a ton of stamina, however that stamina will not give them loads of hp, yet. This way we don't need retarded recommended/required levels on items, it just simply happens naturally.
A level 1 player benefited very little from having 200 strength, it wasn't until they leveled up more that they harnessed the power of that strength in the dps formulas. This is the natural way of limiting twinking, without it being visibly apparent to the players that you're screwing them out of their hard earned gear.
Amsai said:
Yea definately not suggesting blurring the lines of roles. This is more about not babysitting and hand holding. If a tank wants to wear mage robes I dont want to protect people from themselves. Just like ifa lvl 1 wants to go attack a lvl 50 mob........ good luck slick. On a seperate note. I would like to see diversity in how roles are made. Which might constitue a change in gear. Like a caster Based tank. Basically its still a tank strickly speaking only wears robes and uses magical shields and provokes. Or a melee healer like FFXI dancer. It mixes things up a bit but at the end of the day a healer isnt really a dps. And a magic based tank isnt a nuker. Do no need to get upset.
The thing about ffxi jobs (classes) is that there was not some kind of singular definition to the role. White mage was a pure healer there, but red mage, scholar, your dancer example and even summoner could all fill the role to some extent (Though all jobs had either a primary role or were a jack of all trades class). All of those jobs also had the capacity to fill some other function as well. I like it this way, and the devs of the recently announced Crowfall title (I believe indi pvp centric mmo) talked about just what I like which is that classes should fulfill their fantasy first and not be pigeon-holed into a role. On that ground I am perfectly fine with a cleric (I presume healing focused class) that wears heavy armor, I would assume that this might come at some cost to the cleric to keep its benefits in check.
Yes Please! Make gear rare again. Bring back the status and accomplishment of attaining that rare item. Like another poster said I have not been excited about an item upgrade in years. The last one was the shield from Illidan in TBC expac of wow. Since then ..... nothing. Bring back class epic weapons and quests like that. Nothing is more unoriginal then every single person raiding in wow on the same quest to get the same exact ring.
I won't pretend to have the answer but I sure hope that this dev team can break the status quo here. As many of you have said, there's just nothing fun, exciting or unique about looting anything in the modern MMO. Its just an endless flood of blues and greens that equate to nothing more than an endless supply of +1 increases or vendor trash. Not realistic, not creative and certainly not fun.
Brad did say there would be twinking, to some extent. The problem with removing level restrictions on gear is the perma-camp problems. Yes, so a player has gotten an earring of invisibility from that evil magician deep in the dark dungeon... oh well, the player wants his level 1 twink to have the same earring and so he's camping/farming the area with his main who now gets zero return in exp, and is 'blocking' the path for those who are just able to exp in the area.
I agree with the majority who wish for rare, crafted, longer lasting, gear. I do not agree with a low level character being able to equip and use to full advantage, gear which makes them able to take on mobs 2 or 3 times higher than the normally equipped character, for reasons I mentioned above, and tied to that are the rmt folks.
Dullahan said:
I'm just for whatever is realistic. I never liked the idea of just not being able to equip some piece of armor or it magically turning into a turd when I wear it because I'm lower level. The item is either good or its not. If its wearable by my class, then I should be able to put it on.
What if you looked at it this way. Say you're a fresh level 1 warrior BUT you have a level 60 mage who has some nice level 60 warrior plate armor and swords and you want to give it to your level 1. At level 1 I'd like to think that wearing a full suit of level 60 plate armor would be difficult to fight in so I'd have to learn (level up) how to fight in it. Sure I can put it on, but functioning properly and being effective with it on might be difficult. OR what if it was magical? Then you might need to possess the knowledge to wear it.
I'd like to see requirements (a combination of stats) to wield items properly and efficiently. Any non-magical item should be able to be equipped by anybody. A mage should be able to equip plate mail or even a 2handed sword, they would just require the strength to lift it or the stamina to continue to carry it. (how many mages would sacrifice INT over STR just to wear plate mail, most likely not gonna happen unless there was a reason) More complex items would require intelligence to wield them. And magical items would require the knowledge to wield them.
edit. I guess, in this case, this is why most MMOs just require a level to equip the item. It's far easier just to need level 20 to equip said chain mail than it is to require 40 STR 30 DEX and 25 INT. I think it is more interesting to have to work at achieving a specific combination of stats to wield items. Though achieving those specific numbers might be difficult without knowing which direction you had to go in the first place.
BloodbeardBattlecaster said:
Brad did say there would be twinking, to some extent. The problem with removing level restrictions on gear is the perma-camp problems. Yes, so a player has gotten an earring of invisibility from that evil magician deep in the dark dungeon... oh well, the player wants his level 1 twink to have the same earring and so he's camping/farming the area with his main who now gets zero return in exp, and is 'blocking' the path for those who are just able to exp in the area.
While camping items would happen if twinking was allowed, it would also flood the market with more earrings of invisibility due to having players be able to camp them and sell them. It only really was an issue with items in EQ that could be multi-quested that were "no drop." But, even then, developers could easily alleviate those problems by having a mobile spawn like Sebillis key mobs versus the a mob like the Ancient Cyclops.
I would much rather deal with rude players than artificial restrictions.
Most MMOs use level requirements because its easy and they don't care about realism. When I think back to classic EQ, the ability to twink was one of the best features and increased the long term playability.
Like I've said before, just because an item has certain stats doesn't mean it should effect a low level character the same way it does a high level. It didn't in classic EQ and thats why it worked. Your stats and ability levels scaled everything naturally, so while twinking was still a huge benefit, that weapon from a level 50 mob didn't do as much damage on a level 20 as it would on a level 50.
Now in EQ and most new games, if you get a good high level item, the item is scaled back or completely unusable. It pretty ridiculous to see an amazing high level item scaled down to the same stats as a common item in your twinks range. The first time I saw that in EQ, I cancelled my account and never played it again.
I find myself at odds with most of what's been said here. Twinkage has never made sense to me.
If I'm a ninja and I give my next door neighbour my favourite katana, that doesn't make him a ninja too. OK so I'm not a ninja, but I am a wood worker and I think the same principles apply. So let me take a stab at this.
In woodworking, if a novice were to purchase the most expensive hand tools, generally they wouldn't produce any better end results than if they equipped their shop at a local hardware store. Generally a novice will muck up fine tools by using them incorrectly and only a skilled woodworker will appreciate the difference between a $10 set of chisels and a $200 set of chisels. The craftsman will do more with the $10 chisels than the novice could ever dream of doing with the $200 set.
If a novice warrior takes his master's best sword and armor, there's not much more likelihood that he's going to be victorious in battle than if he had more modest gear. On the other hand, you can pretty much guarantee the master is going to be ticked off with the condition of his blade after said fight and with the massive dents in his fine armor. Bad novice! Bad!
I believe that MMORPGs generally put too much emphasis on the gear and not enough emphasis on the associated skills. Whether the items are magical or mundane, there should be significant caps on how much benefit can be achieved strictly from gear. Vintage EQ did impose some restrictions, but in my opinion they were too easily overcome and unbalanced.
We seem to have this sense of entitlement that if I have a level 50 warrior that my level 1 rogue should somehow have a significantly easier time leveling. It's that mind set that causes people to tear through levels, largely ignoring game content, simply to get alt #6 to end game. I think this is a huge part of what's broken in MMOs.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be able to pass down equipment between characters, but do we really need another game where maxxed out chars are farming gear for level 1 toons?
If you're going to pass fine quality gear to novices, then the gear should take damage with use and it should have minimal stat improvements which will sway the outcome of a battle. If I "over-twink" then I should be prepared to invest heavily in gear maintenance with minimal positive outcome.
Wouldn't it be a lot more fun to do level appropriate content on each character we create? If your answer to this last question is no, then I would suggest that the failure is in the game design and not with the player. Essentially you're saying the game lacks replayability. No I don't want to do the "kill 800 rats" quest on character after character just to get modest gear. But if the base quest isn't fun and simply a grind, I really don't want to do it on my first character either.
Lots of people here in the forums have said they want Pantheon to be tough and content driven. Doesn't twinkage go contrary to that statement and encourage people to bypass game elements?
I'm going to stand on my position that twinkage is essentially evil.