Hieromonk said:Aye.. form follows reality. If someone wants to start changing out armor during battle.. be prepared to have a penalty. Whether that is a timer, or stat redux, or a combination of subtle mechanic that simulate a person yndressing and re-equiping during battle, etc.
Just no locks.. it is too artificial.
IDK about artificial. I mean who is really going to take off there robes while fighting a 4 headed dragon and put a new one on hahah
No, locking out a player from doing what he physically wants to do is artificial. The mechanic itself would be a fake (& cheaply developed) means to prevent, instead of what we had discused, with the more organic use of allowing players to change equipment during battle, but again having a timer, or stat loss the recovers over time, etc.
If a player wants to get naked during a fight, he should be able to do so..(not locked out frommdoing so) , but if he is doing it, because he forgot to put on raid gear before the fight.. that player should suffer for his lack of preperation, & be subjected to a timer, etc.
Many ways to acheive a goal, organic is always better than artificial.
Hieromonk said:No, locking out a player from doing what he physically wants to do is artificial. The mechanic itself would be a fake (& cheaply developed) means to prevent, instead of what we had discused, with the more organic use of allowing players to change equipment during battle, but again having a timer, or stat loss the recovers over time, etc.
If a player wants to get naked during a fight, he should be able to do so..(not locked out frommdoing so) , but if he is doing it, because he forgot to put on raid gear before the fight.. that player should suffer for his lack of preperation, & be subjected to a timer, etc.
Many ways to acheive a goal, organic is always better than artificial.
I agree. I think it was Mortal online that actually had a very brief progress bar when equipping each item. I really liked that. It was realistic, and made it so you couldn't just instantly don an entirely different set of armor. Especially in combat, I think that sort of thing should exist. In fact, I think the time it takes to equip armor in combat should be longer than out of combat.
Dullahan said:EQ had situational gear originally. Having a full set of resist gear made it possible for 20 people to kill a dragon that would take 50+ w/o said gear. Down the line it faded away as the best items had all the stats you could ever want, AND resists. Thats streamlining in action, folks.
Today I'd really like to see situational gear be a thing again. An item should never provide the best everything. Balanced, yes, but you should have to make a decision. If you want to maximize damage, you should have an item that pumps strength, attack or a particular spell/mana type etc. If you want survivability, you should focus health and resists but have to sacrifice yoru stats that may give you damage or even different abilities.
Its important that situational gear be a decision (choices = depth), and one you should have to make prior to leaving town. I don't want to see the ability to carry 5 sets of armor on you at a time, and have them on macro. It needs to be more about acquiring said gear, and then proper preparation and knowledge of when to bring them with you.
Full set? You're stretching it. We'd throw up resist jewelry, a crown of froglok kings and the symbols of loyalty to vox(for example), but it wasn't like people had a full blown alternate gear set. And even then, that was extremely situational. You're doing vox, you know need CR. Otherwise you spent the vast majority of your time in your best in slot gear because it was just that, and it kicked ass to have items you don't have to fiddle with.
I think gear sets kinda suck, they devalue your items as a whole. I WANT to have that dream item I can go get and feel amazing about. I don't want to be swapping my hard earned rare item out situationally very often.
Krixus said:Dullahan said:EQ had situational gear originally. Having a full set of resist gear made it possible for 20 people to kill a dragon that would take 50+ w/o said gear. Down the line it faded away as the best items had all the stats you could ever want, AND resists. Thats streamlining in action, folks.
Today I'd really like to see situational gear be a thing again. An item should never provide the best everything. Balanced, yes, but you should have to make a decision. If you want to maximize damage, you should have an item that pumps strength, attack or a particular spell/mana type etc. If you want survivability, you should focus health and resists but have to sacrifice yoru stats that may give you damage or even different abilities.
Its important that situational gear be a decision (choices = depth), and one you should have to make prior to leaving town. I don't want to see the ability to carry 5 sets of armor on you at a time, and have them on macro. It needs to be more about acquiring said gear, and then proper preparation and knowledge of when to bring them with you.
Full set? You're stretching it. We'd throw up resist jewelry, a crown of froglok kings and the symbols of loyalty to vox(for example), but it wasn't like people had a full blown alternate gear set. And even then, that was extremely situational. You're doing vox, you know need CR. Otherwise you spent the vast majority of your time in your best in slot gear because it was just that, and it kicked ass to have items you don't have to fiddle with.
I think gear sets kinda suck, they devalue your items as a whole. I WANT to have that dream item I can go get and feel amazing about. I don't want to be swapping my hard earned rare item out situationally very often.
Also a good point you make there =)
I agree 100% with Krixus. The game should be challenging and exciting enough that a guild has to learn WHY they need situational gear. The old Vox encounter is a perfect example:
Once the guild has developed a sound strategy and worked together to get the items they need to succeed, they try again. They put this resistance gear on before they start the fight, and it becomes "set and forget." Everything from that point forward should boil down to execution, focus, and class responsibility. I've always gravitated towards passive items in most RPGs for this very reason. I'd rather play my class than worry about microing my gear.
Talv
In EQ prestige was about your reputation. Not some value you could farm vs mobs, but your reputation among players. Getting to know better players, forming guilds. Getting an invite to an xp group the moment you log in, getting invites to hard content that only 20% of the server could ever see. All that.
Modern MMOs assume it is important that everyone can do everything. And i can not disagree any more. If you just can not play your class, you should never be invitet to any meaningful content. You should have to improve on lesser content. Mind you, EQ made this possible by having progression apart from levels. So You hit level xx... you first did dungeon A, then after gearing up you could do dungeon B, then C. Nothing but skill and some gear changed. While the better players with more prestige would be invitet to dungeon C without ever having done dungeon A.
Pantheon is planning to bring back community and reputation among that community. And that is possibly the single most impressive thing for me. I love that goal and wholehearthly hope the manage that.
The progeny system is very interesting to me. Played something like it in the old muds called remorting. Although remorting was the same character not a decendant. Because of that I dont think they will have a new race/class combo but i could be wrong.
Remorting was a great way to add to player progression. I am looking forward to see how the system plays out.
As for the original topic, I think with situational gear in the mix it will give players enough gear to hunt for to keep it fresh and not need to pump out better gear with better stats too often.
They spoke alot about earning and holding onto certian gear for a long time, like a chest plate you got or a weapon or anything, how about something like by useing a peice of armor of a duration of like lets say 1000 encounters and it needs to be repaired the blacksmith(player) can alter or add stats to it with additional ingreadiants ofcorse.adding resists or additional Str, or something to make it speical to your play style.
if you want to add Str to your chestplate bring the Chestplate and Wilderbeast Tusk, want to add AC to it bring him the CP and a Mamoth Hide , Poison resist , The CP and 2 snake fangs you get the picture
it would be like an AA sysyem for your gear
also those people who have used this gear for a long duration of time and upgraded it over time , when a new expantion came out it would be equal or better then the starting gear of that expantion, so no reason to toss it
Krixus said:Dullahan said:EQ had situational gear originally. Having a full set of resist gear made it possible for 20 people to kill a dragon that would take 50+ w/o said gear. Down the line it faded away as the best items had all the stats you could ever want, AND resists. Thats streamlining in action, folks.
Today I'd really like to see situational gear be a thing again. An item should never provide the best everything. Balanced, yes, but you should have to make a decision. If you want to maximize damage, you should have an item that pumps strength, attack or a particular spell/mana type etc. If you want survivability, you should focus health and resists but have to sacrifice yoru stats that may give you damage or even different abilities.
Its important that situational gear be a decision (choices = depth), and one you should have to make prior to leaving town. I don't want to see the ability to carry 5 sets of armor on you at a time, and have them on macro. It needs to be more about acquiring said gear, and then proper preparation and knowledge of when to bring them with you.
Full set? You're stretching it. We'd throw up resist jewelry, a crown of froglok kings and the symbols of loyalty to vox(for example), but it wasn't like people had a full blown alternate gear set. And even then, that was extremely situational. You're doing vox, you know need CR. Otherwise you spent the vast majority of your time in your best in slot gear because it was just that, and it kicked ass to have items you don't have to fiddle with.
I think gear sets kinda suck, they devalue your items as a whole. I WANT to have that dream item I can go get and feel amazing about. I don't want to be swapping my hard earned rare item out situationally very often.
Personally, I played on Rallos zek, and I think we had a better understanding there of just how powerful resist gear was. Most people probably didn't have a full set in classic EQ, but it certainly wasn't because the game didn't encourage it. When I played on P99's red server, we did indeed have full sets. We were able to kill Trakanon with our better players fully equipped in resist gear with only 18 people. We've also done Gorenaire with the same crew, a dragon who I've personally seen wipe raids of 75+ people.
So yes, situational gear was definitely important, even in EQ.
Dullahan said:Krixus said:Dullahan said:EQ had situational gear originally. Having a full set of resist gear made it possible for 20 people to kill a dragon that would take 50+ w/o said gear. Down the line it faded away as the best items had all the stats you could ever want, AND resists. Thats streamlining in action, folks.
Today I'd really like to see situational gear be a thing again. An item should never provide the best everything. Balanced, yes, but you should have to make a decision. If you want to maximize damage, you should have an item that pumps strength, attack or a particular spell/mana type etc. If you want survivability, you should focus health and resists but have to sacrifice yoru stats that may give you damage or even different abilities.
Its important that situational gear be a decision (choices = depth), and one you should have to make prior to leaving town. I don't want to see the ability to carry 5 sets of armor on you at a time, and have them on macro. It needs to be more about acquiring said gear, and then proper preparation and knowledge of when to bring them with you.
Full set? You're stretching it. We'd throw up resist jewelry, a crown of froglok kings and the symbols of loyalty to vox(for example), but it wasn't like people had a full blown alternate gear set. And even then, that was extremely situational. You're doing vox, you know need CR. Otherwise you spent the vast majority of your time in your best in slot gear because it was just that, and it kicked ass to have items you don't have to fiddle with.
I think gear sets kinda suck, they devalue your items as a whole. I WANT to have that dream item I can go get and feel amazing about. I don't want to be swapping my hard earned rare item out situationally very often.
Personally, I played on Rallos zek, and I think we had a better understanding there of just how powerful resist gear was. Most people probably didn't have a full set in classic EQ, but it certainly wasn't because the game didn't encourage it. When I played on P99's red server, we did indeed have full sets. We were able to kill Trakanon with our better players fully equipped in resist gear with only 18 people. We've also done Gorenaire with the same crew, a dragon who I've personally seen wipe raids of 75+ people.
So yes, situational gear was definitely important, even in EQ.
I would have to agree Resist gear had a huge place and thats why you saw some guilds farm stuff with ease and other guilds struggle.
Dullahan said:EQ had situational gear originally. Having a full set of resist gear made it possible for 20 people to kill a dragon that would take 50+ w/o said gear. Down the line it faded away as the best items had all the stats you could ever want, AND resists. Thats streamlining in action, folks.
Today I'd really like to see situational gear be a thing again. An item should never provide the best everything. Balanced, yes, but you should have to make a decision. If you want to maximize damage, you should have an item that pumps strength, attack or a particular spell/mana type etc. If you want survivability, you should focus health and resists but have to sacrifice yoru stats that may give you damage or even different abilities.
Its important that situational gear be a decision (choices = depth), and one you should have to make prior to leaving town. I don't want to see the ability to carry 5 sets of armor on you at a time, and have them on macro. It needs to be more about acquiring said gear, and then proper preparation and knowledge of when to bring them with you.
This is a great post, and to add to this:
We already have plenty of situation gear in other MMO's, but the difference being these are usually not required and looked upon as lesser gear because they're not "max dps" or "best in slot". Creating situational gear and making them worth using are two different things, but equally important. Situational gear, when done right, should be viable and coveted throughout the entire game -- including endgame raiding content -- where players may need to sacrifice dps for survivability.
While I enjoy resist spells and other player-means of countering effects, this could easily undermine situational gear. Maybe this is an either/or scenario, which I would be OK with as long as we don't reach a point where situational gear is wholesale replaced with other means.
I was going to post this in its own thread, but I saw this thread and figured it was part of this discussion:
I think a lot of little things can add a bit of depth and give the game a better overall feel with small, but meaningful progression/customization:
1. Being able to put points into attributes every two levels or so(ala Vanguard). I really like stats & numbers, but I love stats & numbers EVEN MORE when you can customize them and make your character truely your own.
2. Skill gains(such as weapon skills, parry, etc) shouldn't max out as soon as you level. Vanguard did this after a while and it made the skills pretty useless and just a number to stare at. One of the great things about Everquest was the fact that you still had to work on your skills throughout the game and it gave you something extra to work on and improve.
3. Being able to spend 5-10 points on skills when you level up. This adds to the the above and is important imo for customization.
They don't seem like much, but they really add more depth to the game and aren't difficult to implement. A lot of small things like this add up and IMO add a lot to the game and give you more things to look forward to as you progress. Leveling is the standard progression and attributes and skills can be an advancement of their own: progressing horizontally as well as vertically.
I don't know about gear sets. I think I would prefer to have enhancement 'medals' or 'charms' or some such that could be added to my existing favourite gear. One thing EQ had was you really valued the gear you obtained - to have to swap it out to do certain things wouldn't feel as special. I guess options are always best. Sure you could wear the new dragon armor *if* you prefer it instead of your 'old' epic set, but if you obtain the dragon medal it'll do pretty much the same job enhancing your epic chestpiece as the dragon armor does.
As for character progression, I used to like AAs in EQ. Subtle but non-trivial class enhancements and specialisations would be something to tick over while you're exploring every last square mile (or heading to new sideways developed areas). And increasing level cap is fine as long as there isn't an associated gear arms race where if you don't have the lastest stuff you can no longer join in.
To be honest, it brings up a more fundamental issue for me (which I'm going to ramble about now, so...). End game is always an issue, so why do we have 'levels'? Why aren't we just improving skills for usage and 'spending' experience to gain more skills and spells and whatnot? If I were designing a new MMORPG I would give that some serious thought. The whole "this content is this level" is a real artificial and problematic barrier all the time and becomes a total dead-end at cap level.
Why not have it that anyone could go anywhere and fight anything, but difficulty was more a case of needing certain equipment, skills and/or magic to be safer? Orc Drudge? Well anyone can walk up and hit one with a club or the first magic missile a wizard learns will do the job. Dark Elf Warrior? You're going to need to have trained more to develop endurance and shield-work or maybe trained to develop speed and dodging or learned some spells to hold him back while you zap or learned how to sneak and backstab. Red Dragon? You're going to need *all* the more common skills in your class and know how to use them well and you'll need fire resistance either through magic or some crafted materials etc etc and you'll need 20 friends with similarly impressive skills.
Perhaps what I'm describing *is* what happens at level cap. Perhaps level cap means you've learned as much as you can in your profession, now it's all about gear and 'tweaking' and specialising skills.
Hey, I'm not a game developer, but it seems to me if there is this fundamental and constant problem of end-game 'progression' so why not remove it completely?
Wouldn't it be nice at 'end-game' to be able to go back and explore bits you missed and them not be 'greyed out'? For devs to be able to make expansions for both old and new players and for the old players to not have to make new low level characters to play them? Sure those new bits won't be as difficult for the old players with better skills and training, but it won't be utterly trivial like it is in more traditional MMORPGs.
Guild Wars 2 addressed this. One very good feature: your 'level' adjusted to the zone. Go back to a zone that's level 10-12? You are scaled back to level 12. In GW2 you can level cap then go explore all the other starting zones and do most quests (IIRC) and it's not 'greyed out' or trivial. I actually preferred to start new characters, but you didn't have to. There still were levels though and you couldn't do higher level content than you were, but it really made maximum use of the variety of content.
It's unfortunate GW2 was so lacking in challenge and risk - it had a lot going for it.
I played EQ, WOW, WAR, Aeon, Vanguard ... and a ton of other MMOs, so I've thought about progrerssion a lot.
I think in almost all of these progresion is actually fairly well defined while you're leveling... you gain levels and power associated with those levels, and you also aquire gear that augments your characters. I think where this all gets a little fuzzy is closer to the level cap, especially once you start wearing "no drop" items that end up just getting vendored or destroyed when new things come out.
One thing I havent seen is the ability to obtain a blessing, or an endowment from a god/powerful figure that grants something exceptional in exchange for an exceptional task. The one thing that is similar in WoW was the Rallying Cry of the Dragon Slayer, but it was just another buff (albeit an awesome one) and it went to everyone in the zone where I think it should be more for a single group or an individual. When I think of a blessing, it's LIKE a buff but more permanent, not removed by death etc that lasts for months, forever, or until it is replaced. I feel this gives you the ability to progress your character, to give it some power that's meaningful and impactful and involves the lore of the world instead of just swapping in more gear. Additionally, they're situational and by nature, temporary and meant to be replaced.
Consider the following:
1. You want to defeat an Ice Dragon, you know there is a quest from a High Priest of a Fire God Cult to gather some items, and slay a fire behemoth in a triggered high end dungeon event that grants a Blessing protecting you from cold with resits or Cold absorption or both. Your guild can decide to pursue that blessing on their characters if they're progressing where this type of blessing is meaningful.
2. Your guild talks to a God, who is envious of another god, he asks you to prove your worth and once you do offers you a blessing infusing you with some of the rival gods power for deposing or defeating said diety. It's the age old "bring me their head quest", though i personally prefer some quest line to even make such a task available, because why would a god offer such a trade to an average Joe? So, you defeat the god, bring the head to the other god, and you (or a group) are provided a blessing that increased your damage, healing, or added a "Proc" that was lore appropriate from the defeated god. A unresistable proc that reduces magic resistance on Dragons (enabling access to an otherwise nearly untouchable target), increased healing %, increased Fire damage, increased hitpoints, health or mana regeneration or someting to that effect. The options on what you could do with this, and how you could tie it into lore are immense, and these abilities could easily be removed from PVP by making them only applicable to NPC targets.
Etc, I'd expect there to be dozens of these things available if not more, all of varying power and type and difficulty in achieving, but none should be easy as they are rewards for F
We always talk about Gear, but what we really try to aquire in this game is power, and power in my mind comes in many forms. I personally would LOVE to have something like this because it's durable, and re-usable. You can go back to old blessings, change them out, etc figure out what kind of combination for your raid makes sense, but making that change requires interaction with the world AND the lore, which I think is important. Just switching spec, or changing a flask isn't equivalent, because it didn't invole the lore.
So, that's my idea i'll float out there... hopefully someone sees it and likes it. I think it'll add an interesting progression element to the game and that it really helps make the lore part of the experience, and it's something that can be added/removed from the game without impacting loot tables or upsetting people too much, while still providing updated content.
Brief Recap
-Very challenging, requiring groups completing difficult objectives.
-Achievable by completing repeatable Quest lines for powerful Lore Figures
-Limited to higher levels and very few at a time, i.e. 1 blessing at 40, 2 blessings at 60. Ideally i'd think 2 would make sense with 2 categories (offensive/defensive, God/Leader? ) beause it allows for more variety.
-Temporary, but long duration, Semi-permanant, lasting until replaced or mayhbe month + type durations
-Powerful, but not game breaking. Ideally giving a slight generic benefit (regen/stats/etc) that stacks on everything, or stat thats incredibly powerful but only in specific situations (extra ability, resists, innate proc, etc).
-Potentially provide Auras or Vanity animation, size increases etc to signify feats. You should be proud of the really good ones, they're very hard to get.
-Not just end game, but higher starts at higher levels once you can actually achieve "Great feats"
Why should the only way to get something from a god be to kill it or have it give you an item? They're gods after all... :-) Let me know your thoughts.
Hoping to be blessed.
Danny
What I miss in modern games dates back to the very first early games - Island of kesami (1984) and Kingdom of Drakkar (1994) avoided the cookie cutter PPL beginning stats. You rolled for your beginning stats and could reroll until you got what you thought were best. Death means the random loss off of a stat - so a easy death might be one str, and nasty death - killed by a higher level mob might mean a con point loss. Stats affected leveling - so max con gave max hits. Con loss meant less hits on leveling. Stats could be replaced by rare points - con pots for example might only be found in a dragon lair. If your con level level fell below a certain point 8 out of 18- you got perm death - time to reroll. The game even had aging by excessive magic use - and those youth pots were rare - too old - heart attack - perm death. This ensured you hunted for potions or raised coins to puchase. of course stats could be modified by gear.
Permadeath in MMOs is no bueno. No one wants to play that. Not literally no one, but practically no one.
As for the OP:
Janthu said:From the Game Tenets:
So what does this mean from a game play standpoint?
Do you have starting character statistics that impact your power or does gear have so many statistics that the difference is marginal?
I don't believe these are mutually exclusive concepts.
Janthu said:Do you gain your gear over months or years with few key items spread out lasting months at a time or does every peice of gear get replaced when a content expansion comes out?
I'm 99% sure Pantheon will have some interesting, unique pieces that carry on due to functionality, but most equipment will get replaced. Gear progression is integral. Also, even in EQ, almost every single item from classic had a direct statistical upgrade in Kunark. That wasn't very long, honestly.
Janthu said:Are there gear choices based on secondary statistics that add flavor or are the gear choices clear and the differentiation come from the living codex?
I don't know so I can't answer this.
Janthu said:How do you advance your character after you reach maximum level? Is it gear? Alternative Advancement? Factions? Stat customization?
Mostly gear. Alternate Advancement is an idea they have entertained for maybe a while after release, but it won't be there on launch. Factions, almost definitely. Stat customization? Not sure what you mean by that. Base stats are usually somewhat set in stone, but both gear and AAs are forms of stat customization.
Janthu said:Having played and seen the various MMO options there are differences and they impact the game in unique ways.
Raiding Guilds:
In the original everquest there were tiers of raids that existed and while you had a viable option to replace/upgrade your gear through the raid tiers/expansions the fact remained that gearing up a new player was much harder unless he/she could be carried by the raid team. It meant something when the raid force had to take a step down in content tiers to regear new recruits to continue to progress. Some guilds would do community events to invite friends and family and non raiders both as a recruiting tool/trial run/etc but to serve both purposes.
Games like WoW on the other hand basically wipes the slate clean every leveling expansion and you can take a break on expansion and have a chance to be a top guild on your server the next having more to do with your skill and organization then the carried over gear you were lucky enough to get dropped in previous raids.
Not really. In original EQ, throwing on a boatload of resist gear made you virtually immune to damage from 99% of content unless you were tanking it. Original EQ in general was kind of a joke, at least in my opinion. It easily goes down as the best MMO in history, in my opinion, but I think you're overstating things a little bit. Once the information was figured out that resists are practically godmode for non-tanks, a lot of the content became trivial.
EQ's biggest challenge was from logistics, in my opinion. Most people were bad at the game. It's hard to compare that to modern MMOs where context from previous games translates very heavily just due to experience. A veteran WoW player would have no trouble picking up a game like Pantheon, at least from a mechanical point of view.
I really hope when the expansions hit that it's based on horizontal progression rather than vertical (leveling up another 10 levels). I always hated when expansions come out and all the gear and achievements I worked so hard to accomplish are now useless. I think horizontal progression is the best. It gives you something you're able to get into and your gear plus all the old content is still relevant. I really loved how The Secret World did progression. They added a new equipable slot for auxiliary weapons and added an extra ability slot on your ability bar for it. They created augment slots on your gear to increase stats. They created new content in a new zone with new gear slots for "shields". It's a bit much to explain but it made it so you weren't just grinding the 10 plus levels as quickly as you could to see the new expansion content. It still required grinding to make yourself more powerful and it opened up new content.
Obsolescence of gear and content is practically required to have a sustainable game long term. If you're opposed to level caps as a form of progression then it logically follows that you should be opposed to levels as arbitrary numbers as a whole. However, Pantheon is following in the footsteps of games like EQ that are extremely vertical.
While Pantheon has more horizontal content than its predecessors, I don't really think it's viable to not at least have a significant portion of your gear getting replaced on a semi-regular basis. Holding on to the same item for a year is just really boring, imo.
@Liav
You are right that there needs to beand will be gear progression. But I wouldnt say that Pantheon will be extremely vertical.
FAQ 13.9 specifically cites that gear progression will be slower. And there is also the need for situational gear in The Pantheon Difference. Both of these suggest to me much slower vertical progression with a good amount of horizontal progression. I expect gear to be cherished and remembered. Which seems to be what VR has indicated here.
If you're holding on to gear for a year, yes, extremely boring. You should always have something to strive for. I am just saying horizontal progression can do this just as much as vertical. I think it's quite silly when you can replace a peice of epic gear from the previous expansion with the first peice of gear you get on the new expansion. As well as seeing your crits go from 500 to 450k...maybe I'm over exaggerating?? :P
So my first hope regarding gear is that stats themselves are more indepth. I am tired of games that cop out with only a handful of stats making gear extremely linear. Oh I am an int caster so max int and im happy just seems boring. What if you had 4-5 different stats or more which affected spell casting and helped add depth to your specific character and playstyle.
Mind - primarily increases mana pool
Intelligence - primarily increases harmful power
Wisdom - primarily increase beneficial power
Perception - primarily increase crit
Focus - primarily increase crit dmg
Forthought - primarily increase cast speed
Memorization - primarily increase number of spell slots
Willpower - primarily reduce resist chance
Efficiency - primarily reduce mana requirement of spells
In addition to their primary bonus they could each offer unique sub bonuses. The other great thing about adding multiple meaningful main stats is that certain spells/abilities could be gated behind them or further enhanced by achieving certain thresholds. The challenge is the more complex the system the harder it is to keep it balanced. If the game ends up being whoever has the highest mana pool wins then suddenly mind again will be all that matters and back to square one.
So as for gear itself I am not a fan of global BIS. I want to be able to personalize my character with a number of options that are all viable. I want my gear choices to matter and I want to have to work for what I consider to be the best for my character.
Given the ability to design the gear system myself I would make it more of a combination gear/mod system with nonstandard mod slots depending on the quality of the gear. This also speaks to me on more of a roleplaying level as well as I dont expect a dragon to be carrying crazy weapons/gear unless i am actually raiding its lair and looting previous explorers. But if I run into a dragon randomly in the forest I expect it's remains to be magical relics I can use to imbue my gear with powerful properties. But some creatures such as a high level undead necromancer might legitimately have a crazy powerful magical robe Id like to wear after a good wash. In addition to a few base stats/effects the robe may have a defensive mod slot and two offensive mod slots where i could imbue it with say the dragon scale and fang and maybe a griphon talon to increase its stats in a way thats meaningful to my playstyle.
Regardless of what system is implemented my favorite part of early EQ was the drastic difference between casual gear and raid gear. Current new mmos always have some alternative method of acquiring nearly raid level quality gear for non raiders and if these are Epic long quests that take crazy personal time investment than go for it. If crafters can spend days or a week making a single piece of raid quality gear fine in fact I hope these exist. But if I can spend a few hours and be almost as good as someone in raid gear then what incentive is there to raid? I loved that as expansions came out in EQ the guilds on the server got to experience each expansions raids because they had to do so for progression. This sytem meant content mattered and you actually got to experience it even if not immediately if your guild was a few expansions behind. Yes this made aqcuiring new raid ready players a chore but perhaps add some way to combat this rather than making raids less important. What if in addition to regular loot from raid mobs they also dropped temporary fully powered raid level items possibly even slightly over powered. But these pieces of gear once equipped will break within 6 hrs of equipping. have these items be tradeable and guilds could stockpile these for new members to make them not so useless or if new players arnt their issue they could sell these to wealthy casuals who want a temporary jump in power to fight in some area they previously couldnt. If temporary gear is not viable then have a system for raid bolstering. for every 5 people in the raid have the ability to bolster one person whose gear is not quite up to par maybe at some small penalty to avoid abuse but bolstering might mean you only have to catch them up with a few previous raids instead of all previous raids.
Ultimately I am very excited to see the current plans for gear in pantheon.
Kodiack54 said:They spoke alot about earning and holding onto certian gear for a long time, like a chest plate you got or a weapon or anything, how about something like by useing a peice of armor of a duration of like lets say 1000 encounters and it needs to be repaired the blacksmith(player) can alter or add stats to it with additional ingreadiants ofcorse.adding resists or additional Str, or something to make it speical to your play style.
if you want to add Str to your chestplate bring the Chestplate and Wilderbeast Tusk, want to add AC to it bring him the CP and a Mamoth Hide , Poison resist , The CP and 2 snake fangs you get the picture
it would be like an AA sysyem for your gear
also those people who have used this gear for a long duration of time and upgraded it over time , when a new expantion came out it would be equal or better then the starting gear of that expantion, so no reason to toss it
An AA system for armor- I think thats a great idea. Brings in crafting or questing or swappable augmentations with a small money sink for augment or additon removal.
For the bored; instead of seeing the same name of the armor have the name change with every added piece? But that might be too hard, unless part of the fun would be in the knowledge the player has that it would take a name from a random list of words from three columns, like those click-bait sites that say things like find your rapper name, or find your hobbit name?.
So one augmment for fire would turn "Stalwart Sheild of foundation" into "stalwart Shield of protection" Adding poison and AC would make it "Embiggened Bulwark of Kazan" and show different resists or stats than the Original shield.