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Gear Progression in MMOs (Poll Too)
BaconJA89
Member Posts: 118
Check out this article. It uses WoW as a starting point to talk about gear progression in MMOs. I thought it was really interesting and definitely projects the way the industry is heading.
spinksville.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/losing-gear-progression-in-wow/
Discuss.
Comments
I prefer the hardest content and best items to be only available to the most dedicated raiders. It builds character and it nice to be in a community where good gear often denotes a good player (not always, but often).
I wish there was a long atunement in MMOs where you had to clear all of the previous content once before you could advance. It would be cool if new raiders at 80 in WoW for example, had to go clear Molten Core, AQ, and Black Temple for example, before heroics were unlocked in Northrend.
I agree that the best rewards (of whatever type) should go with the hardest content.
I don't believe that raiding inherently requires the most skill, however. It is primarily about scheduling and gear grinding.
With gear rewards, you are getting more powerful (not skilled) as you go through the content, so that is no sign that you are a better player. If the gear progression meets or even exceeds the increased difficulty, then you are not challenging yourself at all.
If you really wanted to brag - top content should require that you wear inferior gear to complete it.
It takes more skill to beat an enemy when you are using inferior gear.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I say all content should be accessible by all players (See: UO)
I voted on content for all, BUT ONLY if the players are required to put in the necessary quantity of effort to get them. I'm not for insta-gratification, but I'm also not one who enjoys months just to kill one single boss. Rewards for appropriate effort is what I like.
Prior to TBC, Blizzard realised that not everyone wants to raid, and if players didn't raid then WoW "Classic" was kind of limited in its scope for available group based activities to keep people amused. One of the reasons why people don't want to raid because of the fact that they just do not have the time any more to spend on such things. They aren't interested in wasting their lives "training". They want to play a game where progression can be obtained within an acceptable timeframe. And before anyone starts complaining about an "insta-gratification crowd" I've yet to see ANYONE who wants it very easy either. Players expect not only to be given a challenge based on the reward, but a challenge that is DO-ABLE within a respectable time scale (i.e. not taking months just to take down the first boss). **** See note at end of this post about raid progression speed
And this is what the Argent Tournament instances provides, a means of enjoying more group based (and also raid based) activities that don't require the same amount of time "training" as raiding typically does, just to take down the first boss whilst offering a means of character progression. Plus those instances are more "accessible" because they don't necessarily require a raid to do them. However, and THIS is where the problem comes in, whilst such dungeon instances allow players to put in the necessary effort to obtain items which are competitive to the stuff found in raids such as Ulduar (iirc), there is no counter "encouragement" to get people to enjoy 6+ player raiding in the other raid instances. Which is a problem if you just happen to be a player who WANTS to raid in somewhere other than the Argent Tournament.
Therefore, perhaps the solution lies in either converting the Ulduar raid instance into a challenging group based instance (equal or harder 6 man Heroics) with better chance at loot drops, or increase the potency / frequency of the drops in the Ulduar raids to compensate and encourage players to do that instance.
**** Some people may argue that the raids in WotLK are far easier than they have been in "Classic" WoW, and I'd agree somewhat. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Whilst spending months to take down a first boss in BWL may look like a good idea to keep the money flowing in, it's stretching the definition of what could be classed as a "acceptable timeframe" to expect a player to spend months of their lives on that one boss. However, IF the devs speed up the rate of progression in a raid dungeon, they better make sure that there is enough content (AND rewards) to counter the acceleration of progress. For instance, if a raid instance previously had 6 incredibly hard bosses that took months and months to train for, then double the quantity but decrease the difficulty slightly.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Which is fine IF there are regular raids going to ALL of those instances. What happens if a relatively new player (in terms of subscription date) joins WoW after Wotlk? Will he regularly be able to find raid groups going into Molten Core, AQ and BT? If not, then there has to be an alternative way for that potential raider to get to the point where he/she wants to be i.e. raiding the current "end game" instances.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
I don't agree with WoW concept of the only way to achieve the best gear is through group raiding. I think there needs to be other ways to get the "best gear"-either through making it yourself-or other quests not necessarily related to raiding.
I agree. It's all about giving choices to the playerbase. More choice = happier playerbase. However, in order to do that, the devs have to be sure that they have provided enough incentives and encouragement for ALL the different choices, otherwise people will just want to take the path of least resistance without giving the others a second glance. And not many MMO's achieve this goal. Both AOC and WoW suffers from this.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
I think there should be equal top end gear for solo PvE, group PvE, PvP, and crafting. There would have to be some limitations put in to make solo PvE and crafting methods challenging, though.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Now make an study on Pet and Mount Progression.
The concept of power, transcends leveling and max level.
Nowadays, maximum individual character power is a combination of multiple factors.
A good example of that is a game called Eudemons Online.
Your character level is capped at around 130-140.
Your gear, its rank, level, enchantment level, etc all get measured up objectivelly and automatically by the system and it adds you a battle potency bonus based on that.
Besides the actual damage/ defense, and many other specific values on gear, and magical bonuses and etc, the battle pontecy is added to it, if I remember if you have the best possible gear it gives you a battle potency bonus of 106 or so.
So we have level 130 and gear up to 106. Both values stack.
Any player can reach level 130 in weeks. But to reach that gear rate of 106 it can takes many months, or just some days if you spend money (since its a free to play game with P2W mechanics).
Due to that, casual players might reach level 100 or so relativelly fast, but even if they end up reaching around level 110 or so, they might think: "Hey, Im almost in the cap, so those hardcore players dont have a huge advantage over me, because the content is accessible and...." WRONG.
Hardcore players will get the gear advantage, after some months, while casual players will reach max level and sort of stagnate on gear, while the hardcore players will keep going deeper and deeper. The casual player might spend some money to counter that, instead of wasting 3 months doing worthless repetitive killing, since he already reached max level just to drop whatever he needs to increase his gear potency he can simply by it with real money, a three figure investment and you economize three months of mindless grind.
You have casual cast= character level
You have hardcore cast = gear level, requiring long time investment
You have payer/buyers RMT players = to get the gear in "casual" time
And then you have... PETS!
How does the pets work? You can have a 3 pets at a single time and all of them also have a "battle potency" rating, all of them adding to your total "battle potency". The thing is, unlike your character level cap and your gear cap, the pets potency is not capped.
Pets have levels, but they have a power rating, once they reach a certain level they can be "reborned", starting again on level 1, but with a higher power rating, awarded in "stars". Each star is worth 1 battle potency. There is no cap for pet stars.
So eventually (over 5 years in Chinese server) you can have your pets reach 163 stars each, weighting up 4 times your character level power.
But it doesnt stop there.
Then you have the battle potency bonus awarded for being in the rankings, the player rankings.
If you are top 50, the game awards you with a specific potency level based on your rank. If you win a rank, you gain more potency, if someone pass you behind, making you lose rank, you lose potency!
So what happens? People are always playing more and more to increase their rankings, competing with others, because... this gives more power to them, or to avoid losing their bonus power... and its a considerable bonus ammount. Since its a cash shop game, well... and you dont have a power cap, people can always buy more cash shop stuff to slowly progress their pets. But its not the point.
The point of this post is to expand on the notion of POWER.
Character level progression, Gear progression, Pet progression, Mount progression, whatever progression.
EVERYTHING ENDS UP BEING POWER. Thats what matter for this discussion.
Its all about either balance or power over others and a measure of time (if its a subscription game, or else we have money on the equation).
People are discussing what? If they want a game where everyone who spent 1 month to have the same power, is that it?
Are you discussing a power cap that takes into account all power factors. They are complaining that, even though people can reach max level in a week in WOW, they dont reached the MAX POWER? And is that wrong?
Seriously people, in a massivelly multiplayer online role playing game, in a persistant, ever changing, ever progressing, living breath world, they want to BREAK THE PREMISE OF THE GENRE BY ADDING A CAP TO PROGRESSION? BY MAKING IT STALE BECAUSE CASUALS DONT WANT TO BE OVERPOWERED? BECAUSE CASUAL PLAYERS THINK ITS NOT FAIR THAT THEIR WEAK ASS CHARACTERS CANT COMPETE EVEN AFTER THEY REACHED LEVEL CAP?
What MMORPGs are becoming nowadays? A true MMORPG has no power cap, no reachable max power cap, not in 1 week, not in 1 month, not in 6 months!
Ever changing, ever evolving, persistant characters progression, the more time and effort you spent into it, the better you get, there are other people, but the world and other players character DONT STOP EVOLVING JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT LOGGED thats the core principle of a massively multiplayer online role playing game
If you are a casual game who cant log in, sorry, MMORPGs dont wait for you. No such thing as PROGRESSION CAP.
"Oh, we need progression caps, just so others dont leave me behind!"
Its an MMORPG, the world dont stop when you log out. OTHER PLAYERS DONT STOP WHEN YOU LOG OUT. THEY DONT WAIT FOR YOU.
If a game has a power cap its not a MMORPG anymore. Any attempt to cap character progression/evolution in the game mechanics is AGAINST what a MMORPG stands for. There is no such thing as balance if one person logs in 2 hours a day and the other logs in 10 hours a day. The server stays on 24 hours per day, log in more or less if you want, thats your problem, deal with it. BUT DONT FUCKING CREATE GAME MECHANICS TO ELUDE THAT "Oh, lets make it so out of the 24 hours per day, people can only evolve their characters just 1 hour per day, that way EVERYONE is Nice and Balanced at all times!"
Sorry, but its not an MMORPG anymore.
"Oh, wait for me, your character cant evolve anymore"
"How dare you evolve your characters while I was working/sleeping"
"Your character cant progress anymore!"
Now that people started to figure out that character power progression dont stop due to gear, they want to change that too?
WOW wouldnt have become what it is today without character progression from gear: wich is too shallow, almost hypocrital compared to other games and people still complain about that, hah.
The whole level cap being raised as content is delivered is also a hoax, in MMORPGs there isnt such a thing as "the world stops progressing untill more content is delivered" It has to be made so that people never have to wait for more anything to keep progressing/evolving.
Voted "Hardest Content Exclusive", with the assumption that:
The more dynamic the difficulty scaling of a MMORPG the better. So I could see an above-average group completing hard mode, but having certain factors prevent them from getting the best rewards - they didn't keep the NPC alive, or they didn't beat the boss in under 5 mins. Basically only a tiny minority of the raiding population should be capable of beating the hardest of challenges the game offers.
But none of this really addresses the Colliseum, which (apparently) is a failure of the third bullet point: reward being appropriate to effort.
"Effort" in this post referring to a combination of the challenge of the tasks, and the time investment involved.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
voted other
Actually I don't mind gearing up. But instead of gear checks I'd rather have attunements for certain dungeons/areas (e.g. finish a certain quest chain once to be able to enter a dungeon/area). Another thing I don't like is having to collect tier x gear to be able to go raid/visit dungeon y to get tier z gear. I want to experiment with builds. Experiment with gear that might / or might not suit the build. I want to customize the looks of my toon (including gear).