So ok, I'll try to keep this short and then turn it over to all of you for comment.
I remember back to my glory days in EQ that I was constantly on the hunt for better gear. I also remember that the reason I was doing so was to be a better contributor to help my guild kill "mob next" that we were trying to, but failing to kill.
In short, the point of the game was killing the next mob and advancing as a guild / team.
At some point, that equation inverted. In today's MMO's the purpose of the next content is to get you the next gear. It's not really about doing what's next -it's more about the status of having attained. For sure, this does not hold true in the power guilds. They invest in advancement and gear is part of that investment...
But for all too many, the purpose isn't "mob next" it is "sit in Ironforge wearing my cool sword, or sitting on my cool mount so that people can see me"
I think this is a subtle, but real difference between older games like EQ and newer MMO's.
But I could be entirely full of crap. What are your thoughts?
This has always been a double edged sword. I do agree that in many of the games these days I see ppl just sitting around in populated areas on the fancy mounts wearing their fancy gear afk. Back in the day and mind you I was not in a tip of the sword guild back then we did a lot of grinding to get descent enough gear to even attempt lets just use Fear from EQ. After countless time of grinding and farming we would send in one or two groups to "break" the zone in so the rest of the guild could come in and not wipe. Breaking the zone-in could take hours and many attempts btu the one thing I can say, breaking into Fear was a major accomplisment. Followed by killing trash as a mojor accomplishment. Finally we might get a bnamed kill in Fear and the guild would go nuts. Kills and Loot seemed to mean so much more back then. Most were just happy to be on a raid that got a new drop for someone. There was no argueing about loot because we all knew the item went to a fellow guild member that in turn would help us do better next time. EVeryone loves new shineys but for me it has always been the needs of the many over the need of the few or the one.
I think with a good mix of quest drops, gear drops, skill drops, tradeskill drops, collectible drops, etc., should erase a lot of that next expansion gear race. I feel as long as all these possibilities remain true to each new expansion, it will keep people busy a long while where it is not all about the next gear upgrade.
Yes Aldie - but I think the distinction (at least for me) is this: Is the primary purpose of getting gear a status symbol for me, or is the primary purpose - as Deuce stated "the needs of the many over the needs of the few or the one" - that is, is the purpose helping the guild be able to succeed at something new.
MMORPGs are built primarily on "progression" and the most common ways to incorporate progression that keeps bringing people back is gear/item/character related, I do understand your thought process behind this Wanidar but I think altering or removing progression will run the risk of removing the want/need to return or it can make players question the reason as to why they are bothering in the first place if they get less in return for their time investment.
Just food for thought but I like hearing everyone's idea's and thoughts on this subject as it can be a tricky one and definitely an interesting subject :)
Yeah - I know.
I'd just like to see if a game can return the motive for character progression to be more about content progression than "look at me, I'm better than you." I can say that back in the day, when you got an upgrade in my guild, you quite often found someone else for whom your old item would be an upgrade and pass it on - thus cascading the benefit to the guild.
It's not about not progressing at all - it's about why you (the player) want to progress.
Having that high end person sporting the biggest sword and highest stat armor hanging out or just walking around serves a very important function: It shows people what is out there and what they could have if they worked at it. It helps keep people interested, keeps the playerbase logging in and pushing themselves further and further. On forums and fan sites people read about epic fights and great loot and it can even draw in more players.
So yes, you are progressing and by doing so you are also showing others that they too can be like you...eventually.
Vandraad said:So yes, you are progressing and by doing so you are also showing others that they too can be like you...eventually.
Except, they can't. Unless you're in a server top raid guild, you'll likely never get a shot at the top items.
I'd like to see a heavy emphasis on skill development and the quality of mundane gear and not go down the track of every second swamp rat dropping magic items. Combine this with skills that add significant offensive and defensive capability, but have all "people" within a given racial profile stay within a relatively narrow racial hit point band.
A veteran knight in street clothes can still die to a single dagger thrust, same as any peasant. The same knight in street clothes who sees the attack coming stands a good chance given his martial prowess (skill). Put him in high quality field plate, and he's virtually invincible to said knife weilding attacker (gear and skill).
To many games put values on items that are plain dumb. 30pct damage mitigation for wearing plate armor. Seriously? You're telling me that if I hit you with a baseball bat in your pyjamas, you'll take only 30 pct more damage than if you're wearing plate armor? No. Make it real. Make armor mitigation valuable to protect a very limited hit point pool. Do NOT fall into the item inflation of stats trap. Physical attributes should remain within a relatively narrow racial band.
Gear tiers are horrible. That concept needs to be eliminated from the genre. An item is what it is. You wear it until you find something better, but to have defined tiers of gear is an artificial mechanic.
At some point there is a cross over between gear and skill, but gear should never reach the point where it dictates a players ability above their skill level. Give the naked knight a mace and put him against a peasant in chain with a sword, and the knight will likely win, despite the gear difference. Put that peasant in the best magic armor around, and chances are the veteran knight will still kick his arse. Skill should have a higher bearing than items in a game, with good items improving survivability and damage output, but not to the point where they make skill redundant.
What I don't want to see is a system where a naked knight can stand still and soak up 23 hits to the face with a sword simply because his "level" says he has that many hit points and his tier uber armor set means that Ogre trying to insert a tree into his face can't touch him. Evasion? Fine. Straight mitigation based on bonus item stats? Nope.
Gear should also have mitigation properties that make sense vs slashing, crushing and piercing (often a combination of all 3) based upon its physical properties.
And wtf is with every game having buoyant plate armor?
Wandidar said:Yes Aldie - but I think the distinction (at least for me) is this: Is the primary purpose of getting gear a status symbol for me, or is the primary purpose - as Deuce stated "the needs of the many over the needs of the few or the one" - that is, is the purpose helping the guild be able to succeed at something new.
In both of those situation - gear is the goal. I understand what you're trying to say but perhaps intent is a better word.
The real problem with modern MMO's is players care more about gearing themselves because guilds nowadays are just temporary stepping stones to better guilds. The more gear they can get, the better the guild they can apply to. Guilds don't matter to players today like they mattered to us in the past. You could argue that's also due to gear of course but i think it's a much deeper issue.
That's quite the interesting point ! Gear is clearly a very difficult matter to approach. And depending how it is handled it can improve or destroy your game.
From a personnal experience, gear is what destroyed Dungeons & Dragons Online. At the beginning, the game was all about having a team, with roles and good builds, then they introduced overpowered gears, and the game went to the "must have gear" road. Builds and team play were thrown away.
I'm not very fond of limited stuff with set tiers, like in Lineage 2 for example. With this you end up having everyone looks the same, it's sad, immersion breaking and looks plain stupid. I'm more about character evolution. It's cool to have some "legendary" gears, that require a long and hard process to acquire (and I mean a fair one, not a "just have luck when farming for eternity" like in Guild Wars 2). You have something special to show, but I think it should be more about "cosmetic" and some situational special effect. Or maybe this legendary gear can be a special enchantment that you can apply to your weapon, to avoid having everyone with the same gear past some point. That's what I like to a certain degree in hack'n slash, there is a looooot of stuff, and unless you're a hardcore perfomance craving monster, it's not very often that you'll cross someone with the exact same gear.
But I agree with something, nowadays, it looks like more people joining a guild to have stuff than having stuff to join/help a guild :p I had a good example of this in my former guild on Final Fantasy XIV. We took some new players, we helped them get to high level content, and when we couldn't help them evolve fast enough they left for an other guild. And I think the fact that the main attraction (fitting for a theme park :D) after finishing the story is to acquire the highest level gear has its share of responsability (let's face it, the rest of the responsability comes to players that are a**holes)
I have examples prior to that, like this time in Lineage 2 where we took a new players (not even in our guild !) to show him a world boss and even promising him a share of the loot. And, for the first time after weeks of killing, he looted us his weapon ! The player rushed to the wepon, took it and then teleported to the nearest city :/ It didn't even had the level nor the class to equip it, he just took it to get money.
I think the heart of the issue lies with how quickly you can obtain said gear, how difficult it is to obtain (group size required), and also how available that gear is to every other player.
EQ was about contested content, there was only 1 fungi king in the game, not an unlimited amount due to instances, so having that fungi tunic meant that you were probably one of the only people who got one that day when it dropped. It was special, you didn't automatically think "well this means nothing because 1000 other people could be getting this same item right now in another instance".
Exclusivity is an important and effective tool in motivation for players to seek that gear. If it isn't exclusive you just don't really care that much anymore, it's like if everyone in the world were millionaires, it wouldn't mean anything to be a millionaire anymore, you'd just be a standard citizen.
Deuce said:This has always been a double edged sword. I do agree that in many of the games these days I see ppl just sitting around in populated areas on the fancy mounts wearing their fancy gear afk. Back in the day and mind you I was not in a tip of the sword guild back then we did a lot of grinding to get descent enough gear to even attempt lets just use Fear from EQ. After countless time of grinding and farming we would send in one or two groups to "break" the zone in so the rest of the guild could come in and not wipe. Breaking the zone-in could take hours and many attempts btu the one thing I can say, breaking into Fear was a major accomplisment. Followed by killing trash as a mojor accomplishment. Finally we might get a bnamed kill in Fear and the guild would go nuts. Kills and Loot seemed to mean so much more back then. Most were just happy to be on a raid that got a new drop for someone. There was no argueing about loot because we all knew the item went to a fellow guild member that in turn would help us do better next time. EVeryone loves new shineys but for me it has always been the needs of the many over the need of the few or the one.
This is exactly how EQOA was too and it was the best type of format to date in any MMO i have played. I think the way gear is really killing MMO's today is that anything you get today is old and crappy in 6 months. Also the whole "set" gear thing a-la WoW makes it so bland. When every warrior is walking around with the same exact gear on it takes away from anyones uniqueness. I think there needs to be a bigger variety of indivdual pieces, actually a massive variety, and less cookie cutter solutions for gear. That way everyone is a little mix and matched differently than everyone else. This is what made EQOA great. Every person was unique in what gear they had even if 1 or 2 pieces over lapped. Plus, once you had that really cool rare breastplate you got from, say, killing Lady Vox, it wasn't made useless in 6 months by a patch that just threw a bunch of new gear out which made all pieces before it obsolete. That breastplate remained viable for the length of the game still for many.
RandomCarnage said:Vandraad said:So yes, you are progressing and by doing so you are also showing others that they too can be like you...eventually.
Except, they can't. Unless you're in a server top raid guild, you'll likely never get a shot at the top items.
Excep that they can, and do. Just not at the same time as those in the top raid guilds. After the first tier raid guilds finish with the content and move on, then the 2nd tier moves in, then the 3rd tier, etc. So long as you have the desire to get it and can find a guild of like-minded people who always want to eventually experience all the content the game has to offer then they will do just that, just not as quickly as those who's goal is to do everything first.
Pantheon will be no different than any other MMO in that players will see their power increase over time through the acquisition of items, spells and abilities. If there is no advancement there is no reason to play. How quickly gear becomes obsolete depends upon expansion timing and level cap raises. EQ1 started out with a fairly shallow curve in equipment progression. PoFear/Hate/Sky stuff was good, but wasn't so amazing as to replace every slot. Kunark gear didn't go much further but did introduce epics. Velious though...that's where the exponential climb started. I've looked at some of the gear out with the latest EQ1 expansion and the top stuff has +3000hp/mana and more stats than can fit on a page.
My thoughts would align with Rallyd's, Amsai's, and Venjenz's responses. Gear acquisition has always been a focal point and always will be as long as a character gains power through gear, it's just the frequency of gear acquisition that's changed (and the need to curb mudflation). In EQ, I camped the two Short Sword of the Ykeshas and a Flowing Black Silk Sash (haste item) for months to obtain them; however, I kept the sword for months and the sash for over a year, and it appears gear in FFXI based off Amsai's responses retained value as well. Compare it to WoW and it took me 15 minutes to obtain gear and I often replaced it in the same level.
Also, the frequency of magic item drops in WoW and other games after trivialized the feeling of any "rare drops." Even though it was painful to obtain gear at times in EQ due to the extreme rarity, having non-instanced, contested dungeons, with rare named spawns, and then rare drops from those named helped retain the value of the gear. After you obtained the gear, it had more meaning than I just ran an instance/completed a quest - you put blood, sweat, and tears in obtaining it and the accomplishment felt much more rewarding.
It wasn't all roses with EQ though, as Vandraad said, even EQ suffered from gear becoming too inflated with expansion releases even at Velious. And, today, it's simply just a gear-treadmill with All/All pieces with incrementally increased stats each expansion. I think the harder developmental task would be to create meaningful improved gear with expansion releases without creating the feeling of a gear-treadmill.
Amsai said: Yea I agree. Its not the loot that killed it for me in mmorpgs. Its the 15 min speed run dungeons that are as shallow as they are empty and the 3 to 6 month turn over on gear. In XI there were pieces that were good at endgame for 7 years. So because of all the side grades I was allowed to cherish the gear I got for years Cuz some of it was ridiculously hard to get.
Took me 4 years to get my best in slot chest piece. That shock when it finally dropped has never been replicated. To this day it's still my best MMO memory.
This was possible because gear wasn't replaced with newer expansion in XI for like the first 4 years. While this was great at first it also created a huge cock block for gear that never went away. Guilds started camping stuff they no longer needed just to sell the drops to those that did. Players always seem to find a way to ruin the fun of others by gaming a system.
Vandraad said:RandomCarnage said:Vandraad said:So yes, you are progressing and by doing so you are also showing others that they too can be like you...eventually.
Except, they can't. Unless you're in a server top raid guild, you'll likely never get a shot at the top items.
Excep that they can, and do. Just not at the same time as those in the top raid guilds. After the first tier raid guilds finish with the content and move on, then the 2nd tier moves in, then the 3rd tier, etc. So long as you have the desire to get it and can find a guild of like-minded people who always want to eventually experience all the content the game has to offer then they will do just that, just not as quickly as those who's goal is to do everything first.
Not sure what games you play, but for a third tier guild to clear top tier raid content, I call BS on that in most major MMO's.
I have been in multiple server top raid guilds over the years, leading more than one of them in my time. Many guilds reach a point in their raid progression that they simply cannot get past. This then limits their ability to access the best items in game. Usually you'll see raid content get "adjusted" toward being easier once the top guilds are already through them in order to make the content more accessable to the masses. This is not the same as eventually allowing all guilds to be sucessful in all content, unless you go down the tier path, in which case the gear dropped is obsolete anyway if say T6 characters are doing T5 raid content.
We used to run community events where our guild had certain raids on farm status and would offer spots on a rostered booking system to all comers to give them an opportunity to complete raid content and get gear normally unobtainable to them. Strangers could sign up on the forums for the next available space, and we'd run em through to get quest updates and loot. It was well received. We did this exactly because other guilds stalled in their progression despite their best efforts.
RandomCarnage said:Not sure what games you play, but for a third tier guild to clear top tier raid content, I call BS on that in most major MMO's.
I have been in multiple server top raid guilds over the years, leading more than one of them in my time. Many guilds reach a point in their raid progression that they simply cannot get past. This then limits their ability to access the best items in game. Usually you'll see raid content get "adjusted" toward being easier once the top guilds are already through them in order to make the content more accessable to the masses. This is not the same as eventually allowing all guilds to be sucessful in all content, unless you go down the tier path, in which case the gear dropped is obsolete anyway if say T6 characters are doing T5 raid content.
Call it BS if you wish, but it still happened. What you are missing from my argument is 3rd tier guilds are raiding top tier content for that particular expanion at some point. Not concurrent with the top tier guilds, but eventually they get to the point in their progression they can take on that content. It's still top tier for them, just not for others. I was never in a front line raiding guild, we were usually just under an expanion behind the top guilds. When they were hitting the top end of a given expansion we were hitting the top end of the previous one and doing the low end of the newest. Eventually we saw all the content up to the point where I had to stop playing.
I couldn't tell you one name of any of the gear I have had in recent MMOs. It seems I replaced it every play session or more.
Now my EQ1 gear, even though I haven't played in probably 8-9 years, I can proabbly rattle off at least half of what I was wearing when I quit, because most of it had been on my characters for weeks or even months, and was only removed when I needed a certain resistance that an alternate peice provided. And my stuff was far from raid gear, most was the acquired from standard dungeon camps.
My only raid gear was my Runed Bolster Belt from a Vox raid, this is before Velious came out, I still used that item until the day I quit playing after Legacy of Ykesha expansion.
Wandidar said:So ok, I'll try to keep this short and then turn it over to all of you for comment.
I remember back to my glory days in EQ that I was constantly on the hunt for better gear. I also remember that the reason I was doing so was to be a better contributor to help my guild kill "mob next" that we were trying to, but failing to kill.
In short, the point of the game was killing the next mob and advancing as a guild / team.
At some point, that equation inverted. In today's MMO's the purpose of the next content is to get you the next gear. It's not really about doing what's next -it's more about the status of having attained. For sure, this does not hold true in the power guilds. They invest in advancement and gear is part of that investment...
But for all too many, the purpose isn't "mob next" it is "sit in Ironforge wearing my cool sword, or sitting on my cool mount so that people can see me"
I think this is a subtle, but real difference between older games like EQ and newer MMO's.
But I could be entirely full of crap. What are your thoughts?
Me, nor the people in my guild were gear mongers. More often than not, those who were solely after gear, could not crack the right technique to kill a mob. Once a guild knew, they tried to keep it a secret, often conducting a "flash raid" so other guilds could not come around and find out how your guild defeated the monster. (That is where politics comes into play.)
I suspect, that EQ after Luclin become all about gear, because the game itself was being changed to be item driven. And away from situational awareness and know how. To achievement based rungs. I stopped playing EQ after PoP & everyone was holding a light saber and was godley.
Player driven. I'd much rather spend hours adventuring about, harvesting resources than actual combat.
Both in Vanguard & EQ2 materials for crafters drove most everything and a reason for having a game and economy. The fact you had to occasionally fend off monster why try to provide (find) your guild a rare nocturnal lotus leave, to be used in an ultra rare poison to be used in defeating a certain type of dragon..
I was a harvester fist, fighter second and a diplomate third in VG. All at once... whenever. I didn't need to craft much, if at all in Vanguard, because I traded my harvested warez (rares) to guilds for my needs. In EQ2 I spent too much time harvesting & crafting and supplied so much to my guild, that on raids, I walked up and looted corpses first, if I wanted. I was a crafting machine of many arts. It was the knowledge of know how, of what makes what.. and SPENDING THE TIME to make all the sub components, and into a production line of 8-10h.
Pay off was massive..
I think CRAFTED gear and the difference in skill of Players crafting abilities should matter. More so that the gear itself.
ex: 2 similiar breastplates.
One Blacksmith is asking 2,500 pieces of platnium, the other blacksmith is asking for 700 pieces. Among many other things, use of tools, use of obtained knowledge in-game(skills), and actual skill level of these different Blacksmith will matter. Both BP's have nearly the same armor class, etc. But the Grandmaster Smith is able to ask 2,500p for his, because of the quality. (weight?, durability?, etc?)
Anyone can find a rare piece of armor off the corpses of a Goblin hoard. What does that have to do with a quality BP, in which you have aquired over the last month 90% of the components to make one, before handing off to a friend, who is a GM blacksmith, with a pocker GM enchanter who also owes you a favor..?
That is what I call "gear driven"...
Mobs drops should always be inferior at the highest level, to what Players can make. Just the fact that it would be so rare to get 3, or 4 GM crafters to have perfect sub-mats to all make one perfect peice of armor. (A rare reptile's egg, in perfect condition.. needed for the Enchanter, to perform their imbueing of arcane magic, found on a new magical scroll. <--- See..? )
Failure is a possibility.. makeing succes even rarer. Thus a extremely rare peice of Player made armor, that all others will be in awe of. The resources alone and luck and skill is interwoven throught the fabric of all people's involvement in the making of that single Breast Plate.
A Story to be told.
And then the obligatory "Oh yeah"... ... from another guild is heard, because they have a secret up their sleeves too = gear driven imo.
@Hieromonk and @Amsai
I get where you're both coming from. If the game does want a true player-market economy, there does need to be some end-game crafted gear that is what players would consider "best in slot" for their class, or offer other values that dropped armor does not. At the same time, there shouldn't be multiples of the "Icebane" legendary sword...because if everyone has a sword that killed ten thousand frost giants, how is yours any better/different than the rest? Thus a mix of crafted and dropped gear would be neat to see at end-game.