Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Could a game with 100% gear progression and 0% level progression work?
4507
Member UncommonPosts: 351
Just as it asks in the title, could a game where the only way to progress is by getting better/different gear work? Most themepark MMOs are already like this at end-game, and recently some games have started allowing players to skip the levelling process entirely, so would there be any issue for players who enjoy that sort of game if levelling were just removed entirely?
Comments
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The Secret World originally was gear progression based. It didnt have levels, it had QL levels based on your gear.
The Secret World is dead now and replaced by Secret World Legends which is level based.
For an MMO, having progression based entirely on your gear means that itis based on gear drops which is random, so progression would be based on RNG. People already hate RNG enough.
It works for non-MMOs like Monster Hunter.
If you think about World of Warcraft and how being higher level makes you a god compared to lower level enemies even if you were naked and wielding a plain stick in your hands it should be obvious to everyone that something is wrong in the picture.
Now think of the same picture with no levels and you wearing a powerful set of gear. At even level you're no more an immortal, while still having an upper hand against several enemies in more inferior gear.
Next step would be to scale all your skills and abilities with your gear, so that players with bigger stats would make more damage and have more endurance instead of rank x spell you get on level y, that makes 100% more damage than rank x-1 spell.
Levels in these mainstream MMOs is the mechanic that makes everything else but the endgame meaningless, and that is the one we have to get rid of as soon as possible.
If UO did it was after I left... which was shortly after all the volunteer programs closed down. (I was on the Interest team).
When I did play UO it didn't really have any gear progression to speak of. There were PVP players that would pay stupid amounts of money for certain weapons or armor... but in all the PVP that I did.. my crafted stuff worked as well.
My "problem" with MMO's as an example is not whether they are gear based or level based. It's the fact that almost all of them go Raid "end game" and that is why crafting is useless. Or they get the bright idea to lock crafting related stuff inside raids...
The games *I* enjoy most more or less have a player economy and the "end game' just revols around which game you play inside the game... Crafter, Harvester, Hunter or a combination of those. Or with a game like SWG you also had the various Entertainer "mini games" inside the game. I never ran out of things to do... yet in every Raid end game MMO... I get bored quite quickly.
But... Most modern MMOs are insulting player's intelligence by making the gear system so linear and easy.
Your efficiency/ability as a player should be via your abilities/spells/choices,NOT so much weighted towards gear.
However most gamer's seem to be superficial rpg players,they tend to only care about gear and nothing else that is role playing.I don't mind gear,sure it is fun for everyone to attain gear,but it should not be the deciding factor when doing content.It should also NOT be attained through constant instances and Bosses.
There is a simple template that devs keep using,they put no thought into their choices,they instead just keep making common systems to attain levels and gear ,the games do NOT operate like a role playing game but more like a treadmill.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Your first gear is +1, to get a +2 gear set you need to do +2 dungeons and to get +3 gear set you need to do +3 dungeons in your +2 set because if you have your +1 set you will get one shotted..
Later in game you have +15 set with 4 different stats, you need your +15 set to do a +15 dungeon to get your 5th stat so you can do that epic ++16 raid.
Well if it would be a theme based MMO that is.
If it were a sandbox setting you need to progress skills to enhance your character and better gear and you need different skills to be unlocked via quests, guilds, time, money or whatever to obtain better gear, or you can throw out skills altogether and just get better gear via grinding mobs for gold and gear all day long, perhaps quests also but some quests you still need better gear or you die horrible.
"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
In level based progression you could get the +1 gear set and then grind some easy content until you out level both +2 and +3 gear set and are ready to get the +4 gear set.
That's why the end game is the only part that usually matters - you can't out level content anymore, and the progression becomes gear based only.
In the early MMOs gaining level was the main game and where most players spend all their time. Today leveling is more of a quick tutorial for a couple of weeks until you hit the endgame.
Skipping the levels completelly is the next logical step if the trend continues. Then again, there have been another trend the last 10 years: lower profits. That have gone so far so no larger western publisher actually makes MMORPGs anymore and there is certainly possible that those 2 trends are connected.
You certainly could make a MMO without levels but if you do you need to improve the endgame. Then again, if you just continue like now you need to improve it anyways, people are rather tired of it by now, it was originally just something to keep anyone who maxed out busy until the next expansion hits but now it is the main part of the games (if they want people to stay longer then 3 weeks that is).
MMORPGs need some kind of progression and gear progression is just that, if the game is fun enough it will work just as well as the 2-3 weeks to level up most MMOs have by now. Of course you need to improve a bit how gear work and actually put skills on gear as well as buffs but that is easy enough.