I never played eq but..... i liked the way ffxi teleporting was. Back when I played ffxi I mained a whm for years and i got to teleport people around the world. There were like 6 gate crystals and they were really far from one another.
The way it worked was once you got to one of those you would clock on this shiney crystal and you wrould receive a key item that later alowerd you to have a whm to tele you back to it. Only whm's got those teleportainion spells. Although you could sub a whm as any job, but you could only tele to 3 of um like that. Well that was before they raised the level cap from 75.
Another form of fast travil in ffxi was the outpost warps. In order to use those your home nation would hafta be in control of that region. During that week you would need to talk to an npc in your home city and delever an item from him to the outpost within a time limit. Then you would beable to talk to the npc and teleport to that outpost. There was a limit to that to. If the beastmen controled that region then you couldn't teleport there at all. If a diffrent nation controled it then you would hafta pay money money to use it.
There was also warp 2 which blm's had. They casted that on players to warp them back to there homepoint.
Thats pretty much how fast travel worked in ffxi. I used to love hanging around lower jeuno and teleporting people around for money, and meeting my fellow linkshell members in rulude garderns and getting to send everyone there and then jumping down grabbing a chocobo and ride with um to wherever wer were going. Hoefully i'll get to experience that in this game.
Basically pretty similar to EQ.
IN EQ you had 2 basic forms of teleportation. The majority of it was Druids and Wizards. There were various druid circles scattered around the world, and there were some wizard spires as well. Most of them were pretty far away from each other. The spells themselves cost a reagent and a ton of mana to cast.
Secondarily there were a few items that you could use to teleport. There were teleport potions, however they required a lot of rare and relatively expensive materials to make, and only had a few charges. They also usually didn't teleport you to very convenient places. They were primarily designed for situations like, "I'm stuck way the hell deep into a dungeon and there is no way im getting out without dying and losing my corpse forever, better use this 500plat per charge potion to port out". There were later items like the lovingly called "OT hammer" which was a quest in which you had to spend an ungodly amount of time getting your faction high enough for, to where you could get a hammer which had a chance to proc a teleport to a zone called "Overthere". This was a very useful item, however, once again, it was very hard to get.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Interesting you would bring this up. Just today we had a design meeting talking about attributes, what they should start at, and to what degree items could increase them. We deliberately decided to keep the values LOW because we are indeed thinking, planning, and designing Pantheon to be not only fun at launch, but a home for players for years to come.
I hope you and the dev team consider some of the suggestions that we've discussed here such as avoiding "Raw" stats such as Hps/Mana and rather just have the main stats such as STA/INT/WIS on gear.
I really think a way to control mudflation is to avoid the all stat gear that EQ implemented in later expansions (see examples below), never allow all classes to obtain max stats for the expansion, or at the very least, let it be one stat versus another, and avoid raw Hp/Mana/Regen etc. and make them attribute (STA, etc.) based. You'll be able to scale gear much slower with gains being incremental rather than exponential. In the end, it's all relative, but you wouldn't see the ridiculous stats on gear that you see on EQ today (see below).
And, as a side benefit, it allows for twinking without having "twinking" break the game (especially with using EQ-like level caps for damage, etc.).
@Sinist - You're correct - EQ through Velious did a good job with mudflation, but I think if you consider my above suggestions, it could have been even better. I'll do a listing of items per expansion courtesy of raidloot.com - mainly BPs (and a few other items where I can't find a BP for the expansion) and it's very easy to see where gear becomes trivialized/inflated. The addition of basically All/All stats and insane +Hp/Mana totals.
But, if you look at the stats overall, mudflation isn't awful except for the Raw HPS/Mana and the overwhelming number of additional stats (like avoidance - removed due to post length).
The problem with + hps is once you start getting in the +200/300, +25 incrementally doesn't seem like anything, you have to start raising it by +100 (or more) for there to be any feeling of progression - it's much easier to control attribute scaling for a longer period of time. And, you can see how worthless attributes (STA, etc.) ultimately were in EQ (outside of heroic now) as the attributes on gear were typically only 1 to 2 times better than the first few expansions whereas +Hps/Mana is approximately 50 times better.
TLDR: Sorry for the off-topic post, but scaling attributes (STA/WIS/INT) controls mudflation much more than scaling for Raw HPs/Mana.
There were definitely a lot of inflated items in Velious, but that problem trended out of control from Luclin onward. Nevertheless, you are totally right that stats (as well as teleports) should be something added gradually and with extreme care as they both lead to trivializing gameplay in the long term.
I am, I want a game that will last, not turn into a joke a couple years later because they weren't concerned about how the systems would be trivialized over time. I have no desire to invest a couple of years into a game only to find it turns to garbage. Been there, done that so many times that such inattention to long term results is certainly a concern that is weighted when even considering playing the game in the first place.
This issue is a slippery slope and while I am no authority, I do have experience in many games with such inattention and it always results in a game to which the quality is merely a memory in the minds of the release players. They have to be concerned about retaining the quality of play and design that people will experience at release, well into the later years, especially if they are looking to have things like the progeny system. Last thing I want to do is decide to retire a character, start over again and find the game has been turned into another mainstream joke fest to appeal to the impatient and inept. I choose to never have that disappointment in a game again.
As I said, it is extremely important for them to look into these design issues very closely to avoid long term results that will make the entire point of making this game now, invalid.
Interesting you would bring this up. Just today we had a design meeting talking about attributes, what they should start at, and to what degree items could increase them. We deliberately decided to keep the values LOW because we are indeed thinking, planning, and designing Pantheon to be not only fun at launch, but a home for players for years to come.
Just please don't pull an Age of Conan where the difference between a full suit of gear and naked was about 5%, and no that's not a joke, it really was that bad.
I'm definitely all against mudflation, however, stats need to mean something or gear means nothing.
Mudflation is an inevitability, we can slow it, but we can't stop it completely. Just don't let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction and make gear / stats useless.
I agree totally. It's a bit tricky -- if the pendulum swings too far in either direction there are problems. We definitely want to avoid the 5% AoC issue you brought up, and I'm glad you brought that up. Pantheon is going to be a very item (and ability) centric game, so we need to make items meaningful, significant, worth fighting for, yet we also need to make sure that we are planning for the long term so that we're not killing dragons and gods within the first couple years of the game and then going, um, 'what next?".
I'm counting on you guys in alpha and beta to help us with this too, btw
--
-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
You could make items that either give a stat benefit or an ability benefit. IE a choice between a ring that gives you +20 STR that might increase your melee damage by 3 points across the board, or a ring that gives +30 damage to your Amazaballs strike. That way you could tailor gear according to the abilities you use.
You know, my first MMORPG was Lineage 1, and they had a semi-rare item called a Blessed Teleport Scroll.
Players could store up to 30 bookmarks to locations around the world (that you previously visited) and then use a BTEL to instantly travel to it.
I really enjoyed having them, first, you could farm them (drops only) from giant ants and make a decent living selling them to other players for about 500 Adena a pop.
Second, it was another thing to manage, did you want to blow a BTEL, or travel the long way and save the cash.
Third, it really didn't get overused, 30 locations wasn't that many, but it was very nice to use to get back to your leveling spot after stopping in town to sell. (slots were limited and gear I think may even have had some weight.)
I was very surprised to see they did not include the BTEL in Lineage 2, at least not in this form, (you did have TP scrolls back to towns) and I never have seen the mechanic elsewhere reallly.
I would like them back, but apparently others aren't really fond of teleportation.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
A bit off topic, but I am a fan of gear that grants specific bonuses or enhances the way a spell/ability works. Its a good type of mechanic to run in tandem with other gear that provides raw stats. But yea Id like gear stats increases to be fairly at a crawl, even for expansions. Focusing on things like HighMarshal said or side grades in general so as to keep gear valuable for longer.
On topic: Class specific teleports, a handful of hard to get/ hard to make items, Maybe some boats and what not, No mounts ever.
I still think that location based progression is a key way to fight the linear beast of inflation in gear and levels. It has infinite possibilities in continued progression and it can be used as a way to slow down linear progression systems and their issues of inflation. You could even do some complex elements that work each expansions/areas achievements into a overall progression mechanism of the character itself, which again would slow down the linear progression of the character itself.
I mean, lets not fool ourselves. At the end of the day, everything is a cycle of repetition, the trick is to hide that redundancy between content releases so the player feels like each progression is new and beneficial while still keeping the system of progression held to a steady and normal flow to an ultimate goal.
That is, you define the life of your system and then balance it accordingly. So if you plan to have an expansion per year, you design the system to consider a 10 year lifetime (If you make 10 years, you are doing awesome and should be considering adaptions after such by year 5-7). Then, you even out the progression of stats accordingly. Heck, you don't have to iron out everything to that length, just consider it in your initial design flow and estimate the progression accordingly.
By planning ahead to such a level, you get a solid design progression for all your systems. Last thing you want to do is be sitting a couple years in and then freaking out on how you are going to deal with the progression because you didn't scale it for long term and then start shooting everything from the hip.
If you are serious about making a successful game, it should reflect that in its long term design. Any game that doesn't have a planned long term development isn't serious about being a success.
A bit off topic, but I am a fan of gear that grants specific bonuses or enhances the way a spell/ability works. Its a good type of mechanic to run in tandem with other gear that provides raw stats. But yea Id like gear stats increases to be fairly at a crawl, even for expansions. Focusing on things like HighMarshal said or side grades in general so as to keep gear valuable for longer.
On topic: Class specific teleports, a handful of hard to get/ hard to make items, Maybe some boats and what not, No mounts ever.
^ This.
I feel like so many MMO's have missed a great opportunity to properly stat gear.
One of the things that drove me nuts about raiding in WOW was outside of set gear, certain items could be "argued" to be useful for multiple classes. However, it was pretty clear the developers intended said item to be for, whatever, lets say a Warlock, however a Mage might be able to use it. While this isn't intrinsically a big problem, it does make for some serious issues with raid loot distribution and group loot distribution. Lets say that glorious necklace of badassery drops thats BiS for a wizard, and a mage comes along and wants to roll on it because its still moderately useful and technically speaking an upgrade for him. Its kind of a crapshoot for that wizard who might have been spending the last 2 weeks in that dungeon trying to get that item.
An easy way to solve this is stuff like a "+% to (pick an ability / spell)"
Bam, problem solved. Necklace of badassery gives 5% extra fireball damage? Fireball is a wizard spell? Cool, there you go.
The other advantage is you can remove class locks on items, so they're still able to be used by another class provided the intended class doesn't want it. However in a group then its a very hard argue to justify giving it to a mage when the wizard in the raid/group needs the item. However lets say every wizard in the group or raid already has or doesn't want the item, and lets say its a minor upgrade for another class, then its still useful.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
So i was showing a friend this thread and we came upon a good point. One of the other advantages of curbing mudlfation is that is doesn't trivialize previous content. Lets take an example in WoW. Just 1 expansion past release, literally there was 0 reason to raid somewhere like Molten Core of Black Wing Lair. I have very vivid memories of how angry and deflaterd i was at the fact that all my hard earned T1 raid gear and T2 raid gear was worse than green con quest rewards that i was getting only 4 or 5 hours after starting to level in Burning Crusade. It was the epitome of stupid. I know they did it to make all the ultra casuals happy, and to kind of "reset" the playerbase. But in my opinion it was the start of the idea of the "Gear Treadmill".
However, look at EQ, where even long after Velious was out, people were still raiding Plane of Fear, and Naggy/Vox, etc etc. Veeshan's Peak was still excellent loot, even into Velious. It wasn't until Luclin that they started pulling the mudflation garbage. This also cascades into mobs. In early EQ a raid mob might have
only 15 or 20k HP. In luclin you had mobs with hundreds of thousands of
HP, and it had to be that way to combat the mudflation of the gear.
The other advantage of all of this is that it allows more casual guilds to have a reason to go and do previous content that they can more effectively outgear. If (hypothetically speaking) dungeon loot from Velious was good enough that they could get into VP and start raiding that, it was worth doing. The top guilds would still be in ToV duking it out for the l33test gear and such, but the "rest of us" could still have our fun doing previous expansion raid content, and still gets items that were worth getting.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
A bit off topic, but I am a fan of gear that grants specific bonuses or enhances the way a spell/ability works. Its a good type of mechanic to run in tandem with other gear that provides raw stats.
Not a fan of +bonuses to spells/abilities myself as it restricts gear to a very linear path (for all classes). I would always be looking for gear with a particular +spell damage bonus. I prefer the competition over gear that is less specifically tailored/specialized towards classes and determining which pieces are best for my class/playstyle.
A bit off topic, but I am a fan of gear that grants specific bonuses or enhances the way a spell/ability works. Its a good type of mechanic to run in tandem with other gear that provides raw stats.
Not a fan of +bonuses to spells/abilities myself as it restricts gear to a very linear path (for all classes). I would always be looking for gear with a particular +spell damage bonus. I prefer the competition over gear that is less specifically tailored/specialized towards classes and determining which pieces are best for my class/playstyle.
No problem man. Mostly just throwin it out there for more gear diversity and longevity. Anything that can do those things would be good though.
I have no problem with instant travel if it makes sense and kept within reason to specific areas.I never want to see a game get so bad you can just warp to any poi. I was ok with EQ2 type travel as well as FFXI but i don't like games where you can just bring u pa map,click on a location and instantly go there.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I have no problem with instant travel if it makes sense and kept within reason to specific areas.I never want to see a game get so bad you can just warp to any poi. I was ok with EQ2 type travel as well as FFXI but i don't like games where you can just bring u pa map,click on a location and instantly go there.
EQ2's travel system was littered with fast travel allowing a player to jump from zone to zone from a single or series of quick travel clicks. That kind of system is exactly what I am arguing against.
Quick travel as an ability of a specific classes spells, which also must be earned through game play and is limited to key areas in the world is one thing, but allowing "any" player to travel with such ease completely destroys the point and invalidates classes who have those spells.
I know for me personally, this is a feature I am watching VR very closely on. How they handle travel will set the tone for the game and what is to be expected in numerous other subtle features of play.
One thing I remember about EQ and its difficulty in travel is that it created a sense of an extremely large world. You had to plan your travels with your allotted time. It was not uncommon to setup group "meets" for later in the week where everyone would meet up to group (in the 1-19 levels as wizards and druids didn't get group versions of the ports till then).
Also, this made the willingness to explore and take the time to go to a far off destination often worth while. Many times we would head off into some hard to get areas to group without competition while most people would pack up at the local dungeons waiting on camps to clear or fighting over spawns.
I remember Sirens Grotto being a great place in Velious because the Cobalt Scar port was hard to find (rare drop) and so few people ventured out there for quite a while. If you spent the time on the very long journey (could take 1-3 hours to get there depending on class, ability, knowledge, luck, etc..), it paid off quite well with free reign on a dungeon that was hard to get to.
If travel was easy, that experience, that benefit for spending time and effort in exploration and travel would have been pointless.
Yep I want to fall off a boat again and swim for hours till I hit land , then get killed by a sea siren.
As long as falling off the boat is actually me being clumsy and not the boat pulling away before I load into the zone.
I remember playing EQ1 on dialup and this happened to me often. However I was lucky enough to get into a beta cable modem program with my provider and was on cable connection by Nov of 1999
I don't think I ever got dropped off a boat after that.
I remember being on the boat, it zones into the ocean zone, I arrive but the boat didn't. It crashed. No, I didn't mis-sync with the boat, the boat script crashed and the boat no longer existed anywhere for anybody. Swam to the island and had to wait 3 days for the GMs to respond and teleport us to the continent. The boat was still gone for a couple of days before they got it going again. Heck, I even tried swimming to the continent, but the zone wall didn't allow swimmers. That would be a one shot bad story, except this happened MANY times, and not just to me. It wasn't uncommon to ask the zone "when's the boat due" and get told, "it crashed yesterday" or the like.
Comments
Basically pretty similar to EQ.
IN EQ you had 2 basic forms of teleportation. The majority of it was Druids and Wizards. There were various druid circles scattered around the world, and there were some wizard spires as well. Most of them were pretty far away from each other. The spells themselves cost a reagent and a ton of mana to cast.
Secondarily there were a few items that you could use to teleport. There were teleport potions, however they required a lot of rare and relatively expensive materials to make, and only had a few charges. They also usually didn't teleport you to very convenient places. They were primarily designed for situations like, "I'm stuck way the hell deep into a dungeon and there is no way im getting out without dying and losing my corpse forever, better use this 500plat per charge potion to port out". There were later items like the lovingly called "OT hammer" which was a quest in which you had to spend an ungodly amount of time getting your faction high enough for, to where you could get a hammer which had a chance to proc a teleport to a zone called "Overthere". This was a very useful item, however, once again, it was very hard to get.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I really think a way to control mudflation is to avoid the all stat gear that EQ implemented in later expansions (see examples below), never allow all classes to obtain max stats for the expansion, or at the very least, let it be one stat versus another, and avoid raw Hp/Mana/Regen etc. and make them attribute (STA, etc.) based. You'll be able to scale gear much slower with gains being incremental rather than exponential. In the end, it's all relative, but you wouldn't see the ridiculous stats on gear that you see on EQ today (see below).
And, as a side benefit, it allows for twinking without having "twinking" break the game (especially with using EQ-like level caps for damage, etc.).
@Sinist - You're correct - EQ through Velious did a good job with mudflation, but I think if you consider my above suggestions, it could have been even better. I'll do a listing of items per expansion courtesy of raidloot.com - mainly BPs (and a few other items where I can't find a BP for the expansion) and it's very easy to see where gear becomes trivialized/inflated. The addition of basically All/All stats and insane +Hp/Mana totals.
Examples:
1. Launch:
Indicolite (Lustrous Russet) Breastplate - Launch, Warrior Raid - PoF
AC: 35
STR: +15 DEX: +15 STA: +15
_______________________________________________________________-
2. Kunark:
Cobalt Breastplate - Kunark - Warrior Raid
STR: +12 DEX: +12 STA: +12 HP: +50
AC: 59
STR: +16 DEX: +7 STA: +10 AGI: +7 HP: +90
SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +6
________________________________________________________________
4. Luclin:
Heavy Yttrium Chestplate Armor
AC: 75 HP: 125 + 4/tick MANA: 125 END: 125 ATK: 15
STA: 20 STR: 20 WIS: 20 INT: 20
SV FIRE: 30 SV COLD: 15 SV MAGIC: 15 SV POISON: 30 SV DISEASE: 15
Class: WAR, CLR, PAL, SHD, BRD
_______________________________________________________________
5. Planes of Power
Raex's Cheastplate of Destruction
Slot: CHEST
AC: 100
Skill Mod: Riposte +8% (30 Max)
STR: +30 DEX: +25 STA: +30 AGI: +25 HP: +250 ENDUR: +175
SV FIRE: +20 SV DISEASE: +20 SV COLD: +20 SV MAGIC: +20 SV POISON: +20
Shielding: +3%
Required level of 65.
Effect: Echo of Anger (Worn, Casting Time: Instant)
______________________________________________________________________
Skip a few expansions.....
9. Depths of Darkhollow:
Cuirass of the Fallen Saint Armor
Slot: Chest
AC: 143 HP: 375 + 10/tick MANA: 375 + 4/tick END: 375 ATK: 35
STA: 35 STR: 25 WIS: 25 INT: 25 AGI: 25 CHA: 35
SV FIRE: 30 SV COLD: 25 SV MAGIC: 25 SV POISON: 25 SV DISEASE: 25
Instrument_Brass: 2.9
Haste: 45%
Shielding: 5%
Avoidance: 15
Accuracy: 25
Combat Effects: 15
Focus Effect: Wurine Preservation
1: Decrease Spell Mana Cost by 1% to 20%
_____________________________________________________________________
Skip a few expansions.....
16. Seeds of Destruction
Mask of Time Gazing Armor
MAGIC LORE NO TRADE PRESTIGE
Slot: Face
AC: 90 HP: 1055 + 4/tick MANA: 995 + 2/tick END: 995 ATK: 35
STA: 10 + 15 STR: 40 + 9 WIS: 40 + 2 INT: 20 + 6 DEX: 40 + 4 AGI: 35 + 8 CHA: 20 + 2
SV FIRE: 75 SV COLD: 40 SV MAGIC: 25 SV POISON: 40 SV DISEASE: 70
_____________________________________________________________________
And now the latest expansion (or latest I could find info on)....
22. The Darkened Sea
Darkwater Legionnaire Breastplate Armor
MAGIC LORE NO TRADE PRESTIGE INFUSIBLE
Slot: Chest
Purity: 75
AC: 512 HP: 4406 + 5/tick MANA: 0 END: 4238 ATK: 46
STA: 36 + 23 STR: 32 + 21 WIS: 29 INT: 29 DEX: 40 + 25 AGI: 38 + 24 CHA: 32 + 21
SV FIRE: 60 SV COLD: 60 SV MAGIC: 60 SV POISON: 60 SV DISEASE: 60
But, if you look at the stats overall, mudflation isn't awful except for the Raw HPS/Mana and the overwhelming number of additional stats (like avoidance - removed due to post length).
The problem with + hps is once you start getting in the +200/300, +25 incrementally doesn't seem like anything, you have to start raising it by +100 (or more) for there to be any feeling of progression - it's much easier to control attribute scaling for a longer period of time. And, you can see how worthless attributes (STA, etc.) ultimately were in EQ (outside of heroic now) as the attributes on gear were typically only 1 to 2 times better than the first few expansions whereas +Hps/Mana is approximately 50 times better.
TLDR: Sorry for the off-topic post, but scaling attributes (STA/WIS/INT) controls mudflation much more than scaling for Raw HPs/Mana.
I'm counting on you guys in alpha and beta to help us with this too, btw
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
Players could store up to 30 bookmarks to locations around the world (that you previously visited) and then use a BTEL to instantly travel to it.
I really enjoyed having them, first, you could farm them (drops only) from giant ants and make a decent living selling them to other players for about 500 Adena a pop.
Second, it was another thing to manage, did you want to blow a BTEL, or travel the long way and save the cash.
Third, it really didn't get overused, 30 locations wasn't that many, but it was very nice to use to get back to your leveling spot after stopping in town to sell. (slots were limited and gear I think may even have had some weight.)
I was very surprised to see they did not include the BTEL in Lineage 2, at least not in this form, (you did have TP scrolls back to towns) and I never have seen the mechanic elsewhere reallly.
I would like them back, but apparently others aren't really fond of teleportation.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
On topic:
Class specific teleports, a handful of hard to get/ hard to make items, Maybe some boats and what not, No mounts ever.
I mean, lets not fool ourselves. At the end of the day, everything is a cycle of repetition, the trick is to hide that redundancy between content releases so the player feels like each progression is new and beneficial while still keeping the system of progression held to a steady and normal flow to an ultimate goal.
That is, you define the life of your system and then balance it accordingly. So if you plan to have an expansion per year, you design the system to consider a 10 year lifetime (If you make 10 years, you are doing awesome and should be considering adaptions after such by year 5-7). Then, you even out the progression of stats accordingly. Heck, you don't have to iron out everything to that length, just consider it in your initial design flow and estimate the progression accordingly.
By planning ahead to such a level, you get a solid design progression for all your systems. Last thing you want to do is be sitting a couple years in and then freaking out on how you are going to deal with the progression because you didn't scale it for long term and then start shooting everything from the hip.
If you are serious about making a successful game, it should reflect that in its long term design. Any game that doesn't have a planned long term development isn't serious about being a success.
I feel like so many MMO's have missed a great opportunity to properly stat gear.
One of the things that drove me nuts about raiding in WOW was outside of set gear, certain items could be "argued" to be useful for multiple classes. However, it was pretty clear the developers intended said item to be for, whatever, lets say a Warlock, however a Mage might be able to use it. While this isn't intrinsically a big problem, it does make for some serious issues with raid loot distribution and group loot distribution. Lets say that glorious necklace of badassery drops thats BiS for a wizard, and a mage comes along and wants to roll on it because its still moderately useful and technically speaking an upgrade for him. Its kind of a crapshoot for that wizard who might have been spending the last 2 weeks in that dungeon trying to get that item.
An easy way to solve this is stuff like a "+% to (pick an ability / spell)"
Bam, problem solved. Necklace of badassery gives 5% extra fireball damage? Fireball is a wizard spell? Cool, there you go.
The other advantage is you can remove class locks on items, so they're still able to be used by another class provided the intended class doesn't want it. However in a group then its a very hard argue to justify giving it to a mage when the wizard in the raid/group needs the item. However lets say every wizard in the group or raid already has or doesn't want the item, and lets say its a minor upgrade for another class, then its still useful.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
However, look at EQ, where even long after Velious was out, people were still raiding Plane of Fear, and Naggy/Vox, etc etc. Veeshan's Peak was still excellent loot, even into Velious. It wasn't until Luclin that they started pulling the mudflation garbage. This also cascades into mobs. In early EQ a raid mob might have only 15 or 20k HP. In luclin you had mobs with hundreds of thousands of HP, and it had to be that way to combat the mudflation of the gear.
The other advantage of all of this is that it allows more casual guilds to have a reason to go and do previous content that they can more effectively outgear. If (hypothetically speaking) dungeon loot from Velious was good enough that they could get into VP and start raiding that, it was worth doing. The top guilds would still be in ToV duking it out for the l33test gear and such, but the "rest of us" could still have our fun doing previous expansion raid content, and still gets items that were worth getting.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I was ok with EQ2 type travel as well as FFXI but i don't like games where you can just bring u pa map,click on a location and instantly go there.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EQ2's travel system was littered with fast travel allowing a player to jump from zone to zone from a single or series of quick travel clicks. That kind of system is exactly what I am arguing against.
Quick travel as an ability of a specific classes spells, which also must be earned through game play and is limited to key areas in the world is one thing, but allowing "any" player to travel with such ease completely destroys the point and invalidates classes who have those spells.
I know for me personally, this is a feature I am watching VR very closely on. How they handle travel will set the tone for the game and what is to be expected in numerous other subtle features of play.
Also, this made the willingness to explore and take the time to go to a far off destination often worth while. Many times we would head off into some hard to get areas to group without competition while most people would pack up at the local dungeons waiting on camps to clear or fighting over spawns.
I remember Sirens Grotto being a great place in Velious because the Cobalt Scar port was hard to find (rare drop) and so few people ventured out there for quite a while. If you spent the time on the very long journey (could take 1-3 hours to get there depending on class, ability, knowledge, luck, etc..), it paid off quite well with free reign on a dungeon that was hard to get to.
If travel was easy, that experience, that benefit for spending time and effort in exploration and travel would have been pointless.
That would be a one shot bad story, except this happened MANY times, and not just to me. It wasn't uncommon to ask the zone "when's the boat due" and get told, "it crashed yesterday" or the like.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Make the teleports limited and/or class features.
Just make sure my summoner has CotH so I can pull my friends after making the run.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin