Is there too much meaningless gear changes in the genre?

Vermillion_Raventhal · October 2016

Is it really needed to switch gear every two seconds and walk around with patchwork of armor? Luckily most games allow you to change the appearance of gear. But is the constant reward of gear needed?

Tsiya · October 2016

Yes, there's no room for alternative methods anymore. The raccoons must get their shiny! The best time I had in a game was in SWG as a MCH/Pistoleer/Dancer/Medic. I wore my maskscent and taming clothes all the time. If my pet didn't hold aggro I had the defenses to take it. Didn't use buffs or armor. I could even melee, when I swapped pistoleer for fencer(Gaffi sticks FTW!) It wasn't the most efficient, but it was fun. And I looked good doing it.

Archlyte · October 2016

I think that the constant transfer of immortal items is too prevalent. I would prefer to have a character with items that are meaningful to the character and be allowed to upgrade those items. This sword belonged to my father, but it's only +1 so it's on the pile as soon as I find a +2 sword.

WoeToTheVanquished · October 2016

Archlyte said:

I think that the constant transfer of immortal items is too prevalent. I would prefer to have a character with items that are meaningful to the character and be allowed to upgrade those items. This sword belonged to my father, but it's only +1 so it's on the pile as soon as I find a +2 sword.

I personally enjoy upgrading my dagger to a broadsword when the upgrade is rare enough.

Khally · October 2016

I think the OP raises an excellent question and it's relevant to many, many games out there. One thing I have to say, however, is that LOTRO has each gear (and I mean EVERY BIT that drops) look a little bit different so that you can put purely cosmetic outfits to wear. You still have your battle gear really on, but it can *look* like anything you choose, and because the game is years old now and has introduced thousands of pieces of cosmetic armour, you can literally create dozens of outfits that make you unique in the game. I've had a ball spending way too much time making fun and different cosmetic looks; it's a nice change of pace from the typical MMO tropes once in a while.

Shaigh · October 2016

I find that the constant upgrades of gear makes gear upgrades feel meaningless. The problem is that game designers are so damn worried that gear will lag behind for players that they make the game constantly throw new gear on the player, especially when all the items do is add a few extra digits on top of your old gear.

First time I truly experienced the constant switching was in wotlk, constant quest rewards, dungeon reward, raid reward, raid reward +1, raid reward +2 which was the same god damn item over and over and over. Its frigging boring.

Compare that with how loot was in old days, it could go months between weapon upgrades making the item drop meaningful. I also feel it when playing dark souls 3, you get that really nice weapon that just change the way you play.

Sometimes less is more.

Phaen · October 2016

Yeah gear grind is an epidemic that forces new content in order to keep players in the game. The end result being, new game comes out, race to max level, get BIS gear, leave game til next expansion.

Very few people actually spend much time if any in low level dungeons, enjoying the quest lines or ever go back to low level areas. Crafting gear is generally meaning less with crafting food or potions being about the only useful things.

Its really a shame but that's just how most games are designed now

Albatroes · October 2016

Item levels....the bane of the mmorpg genre. It would be nice to have situational gear again or even gear that takes forever to get and last just as long but since we have to have 3-4-5 different difficulties of the same content, there must be rewards in each. Gone are the days of content having one difficulty and you either cleared it or grinded for stuff till you could. And even if you did clear it, you had to deal with the rng of it all. Sounds horrible to those just joining the genre within the last decade but at least it made you value stuff more and you got more satisfaction from stuff rather than clearing content within a week and then complaining how boring the same thing is.

mgilbrtsn · October 2016

Nope. I love gear. The more the better! If there is something I don't want, I sell, deconstruct, trade, etc. I like it all.

Finvega · October 2016

In Asheron's Call loot was a key ingredient in game dynamics. While the main reason for killing Drudge's and such was for experience points to be converted into skill-ups for your stats or skills, it was Christmas each time you looted for several reasons.

1. You might get an item with better stats than yours or have a different style than your existing item.

2. Loot (equipment and armor) were persistent in the world. All items looted could be stored by the player, traded between chars on an account, or sold to another player.

I would hunt for experience to advance my char skills, and also for the opportunity to score a rare item that could either benefit me or enable me to sell it so I could buy something epic for myself. There never seemed to be too many rare drops, and loot became a very stable basis for the economy (player driven economy, not the game economy).

H0urg1ass · October 2016

For me, there are two different points in time when it comes to constant gear upgrades in games.

The first point was before developers starting giving players appearance tabs and social gear to put in those tabs. I remember leveling through Age of Conan and looking like someone who went dumpster diving in the armor bargain bin. Until you hit level 80 and started putting together full sets of gear that looked really nice, the hodge-podge of mismatched pieces and colors was hideous. Don't even get me started on SWTOR's PVP gear when it first released. My Jedi Shadow looked like she was wearing a patchwork of skinned roadkill furs.

Now most games have an appearance tab and allow you to be wearing one set and displaying another. In AoC, my Guardian can look like Conan, running around with leggings, bare chested and no helmet, while actually wearing full plate armor into battle. The same is true with SWTOR, with the added benefit that you can create multiple social sets and swap back in forth. SWTOR only ever got two things right; the ability to customize your UI exactly the way you like it and the ability to create several sets of social armor and swap between them.

So to answer the question, if there's a social armor tab, then it really doesn't bother me that much to keep getting new gear as I level. In fact, I honestly like getting that next pair of pants with better stats than the ones I'm wearing. Maybe there's an area with some difficult NPC's, but after finding a new epic sword, I can go back in and clear them without dying. That kind of progression feels great.

goboygo · October 2016

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Is it really needed to switch gear every two seconds and walk around with patchwork of armor? Luckily most games allow you to change the appearance of gear. But is the constant reward of gear needed?

Oh you mean most F2P games allow you to "buy" skins in the cash shop so you don't have to wear the intentionally horribly designed gear. But that's entirely a different discussion.

And yes, I want drops and rewards and crafed items that improve my character, are you freaking joking? And I want them as often as I can get them. And I don't give two craps what they look like while I'm leveling up.

Why the hell do you play RPG's with character development? To buy a 5 dollar party suit to look cool while your leveling? To not be self conscious about the "patch work" of gear your wearing? And I also like working towards better looking gear "sets" at end game. Is it simply to complicated to keep track of gear and figure out what all the complicated stats mean?

I don't understand. Maybe you can explain why you think this is bad instead of troll baiting everyone into explaining why one of the core mechanics of an MMO is good?

refo18 · October 2016

Made a new toon in GW2 and was disappointed in how much gear I was getting as I leveled up. lvl15-35 I would get an equipment almost every loot with 3-10 stat difference depending on whether it was blue or green rarity. Even crafting myself lvl40 gear, it was useless by lvl43... this makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If im getting "free" gear throughout the whole gameplay to the point it becomes irrelevant, might as well make gear aesthetic only with permanent stats for every class - _ -

Joseph_Kerr · October 2016

I think one of the problems is gear is the main reason to do anything in most gear based mmos so gear ends up being the only worthwhile reward. It's a huge design flaw and limits the potential of the quests/missions in these types of games as a whole. Devs need to come up with other meaningful ways of progression so that their quests can offer other types of rewards.

iixviiiix · October 2016

mgilbrtsn said:

Nope. I love gear. The more the better! If there is something I don't want, I sell, deconstruct, trade, etc. I like it all.

You forget out of spaces to keep .

Iselin · October 2016

DMKano said:

The skinner box principle of "you do this and get a reward" is pretty much the core of most gear based progression games.

Yes there are many different ways of doing games but so far Skinner box aka Operant Conditioning seems to be very dominant.

We rats need that cheese to keep us motivated... more cheese please!

If it wasn't gear, they'd need to come up with some other reward mechanism and many MMOs that get rid of or minimize gear drops just replace it with similar things such as gear enhancement items (e.g. BDO with their black stones.)

The delayed gratification that comes from leveling-up perks is only frequent enough to feel satisfying in the earliest parts of the game. Later on the game just feels grindy in a bad way precisely because you're not getting rewards at a sufficiently frequent pace.

Take ESO and the much hated veteran levels that were replaced by champion points that do virtually the same thing. This was exactly the problem. Veteran ranks were earned extremely slowly and even the gear drops that happened while you were grinding them didn't feel like much of a reward since it was hardly ever anything better than what you already had. The champion point system that replaced veteran ranks has a much greater degree of player buy-in precisely because the points reward you at a much more frequent pace that players find more rewarding.

And with the latest update they even enhanced the loot pinata even more by greatly adding to the item sets that are dropped giving you an additional horizontal reward system: collecting set pieces that may or may not be better than what you already have but are definitely different in what bonus you get from equipping 5 items of the set.

We can step back, be introspective and chuckle about operant conditioning all we want, but the pacing of rewards for effort is a pretty basic and fundamental aspect of game design.

Eldurian · October 2016

One thing that really irritates me is the fantasy games are a way for people to relive the kind of things they read about in books or see in movies. I can't count how many times that the thing that inspired be to come back to a game after a long period of absence was reading something in a book or seeing something in a movie that reminded me of that game and the good times I had playing it.

But one major thing we see in books and movies is the idea of an heirloom weapon. Luke get's his father's lightsaber. Rand Al'Thor gets his father's sword. You build your own lightsaber, you find ancient elven weapons in the troll cave at the beginning of your journey. Your uncle Bilbo gives you his beloved sword Sting.

These weapons are seldom replaced, and when they are it's something of great significance. They aren't simply swapping out for a better sword every few levels.

Some games do offer partial solutions to this. Weapons that level with you LOTRO. The ability to swap mods out on your gear to make it relevant longer in SWTOR. But then they screw it all up, like how in SWTOR raid gear / top tier PvP gear had modules built into it that couldn't be swapped into other items. I mean it would have been simple enough to just give raid gear soul bound mods so that you can put the mods in the gear you actually want.

But no, for some reason there is something wrong with that.

I don't know about anyone else, but replacing my sword every couple levels diminishes the idea of an epic hero's journey which is the ONLY thing that theme parks have over sandboxes. The fake hero's journey you go through in the scripted storyline that ultimately is about as heroic as reading a book. Take that, and theme parks truly have nothing.

cameltosis · October 2016

Definitely far too many gear drops for my liking.

In terms of rewards, they've become so frequent that they no longer feel like rewards, more like payment for doing a job. That removes all excitement and feeling of accomplishment.

In terms of progression, sure, you see your stats constantly going up, but guess what, everything scales up too, so even though my numbers are going up, relative difficulty stays exactly the same so the feeling of progression is false.

In terms of aesthetics, cosmetic outfits have mostly solved this but some games it is still noticeable. I would always end up with mis-matched crap, just because I wanted the stats.

Gear, for me, has always been about building the "perfect" set. I used to take great pride in planning out a set of gear for my character, then going out and collecting, then equipping it and making use of it. There were distinct phases to gear that hit all the right spots. I got excited during the planning phase. I felt satisfied when I got new pieces. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I completed it. I then got excited again when it came time to using the new set.

Now....all of that is gone, replaced by the minuscule satisfaction with each new drop. Only at endgame does the reward cycle kick in again, but only if the game has a decent stats system that allows creativity in your gear setup.

SWG was a perfect example of gearing. I'd spend hours planning my template (professions), which would give me my character stats. I'd then start planning my gear. This would involve researching the best crafters and slicers to get the best armour and weapons. Then I'd look into what skill tapes I needed, and start trying to buy / farm them.

It could take months to get all the skill tapes, but once it was finally complete I'd feel a great sense of accomplishment. But then, it comes time to use it! Heading into a dungeon (geonosian labs) for the first time and finding you're basically god-like was awesome! Or duelling a friend who always beats you, but finally being able to beat them! I'd then get 2-4 weeks enjoyment out of the set, after which the armour would degrade and I'd start again, or I'd change my template and need new stuff to match new professions.

Vermillion_Raventhal · October 2016

Eldurian said:

One thing that really irritates me is the fantasy games are a way for people to relive the kind of things they read about in books or see in movies. I can't count how many times that the thing that inspired be to come back to a game after a long period of absence was reading something in a book or seeing something in a movie that reminded me of that game and the good times I had playing it.

But one major thing we see in books and movies is the idea of an heirloom weapon. Luke get's his father's lightsaber. Rand Al'Thor gets his father's sword. You build your own lightsaber, you find ancient elven weapons in the troll cave at the beginning of your journey. Your uncle Bilbo gives you his beloved sword Sting.

These weapons are seldom replaced, and when they are it's something of great significance. They aren't simply swapping out for a better sword every few levels.

Some games do offer partial solutions to this. Weapons that level with you LOTRO. The ability to swap mods out on your gear to make it relevant longer in SWTOR. But then they screw it all up, like how in SWTOR raid gear / top tier PvP gear had modules built into it that couldn't be swapped into other items. I mean it would have been simple enough to just give raid gear soul bound mods so that you can put the mods in the gear you actually want.

But no, for some reason there is something wrong with that.

I don't know about anyone else, but replacing my sword every couple levels diminishes the idea of an epic hero's journey which is the ONLY thing that theme parks have over sandboxes. The fake hero's journey you go through in the scripted storyline that ultimately is about as heroic as reading a book. Take that, and theme parks truly have nothing.

It is kind of lore breaking to be swapping out lightsabers. Its one thing that I liked about CoH's that you're character look was his own.

BMBender · October 2016

I don't often stick around long in games that use gear bloat as a crutch to mask lack of content. Or conversely make previous content a team spent months/years creating irrelevant and empty within a couple days/weeks, due to player segregation based on gear/level.

Arglebargle · October 2016

The gear grind is just wasteful of art assets. Use it for a level or two, then toss it out. Would definitely prefer something with an additive system, be it boosts to your items via magic gems, magic spells, visits to master bladesmiths, etc.

waynejr2 · October 2016

I love gear drops and the like. One thing I that is kind of missing were some items that lasted a long time rather than a few levels.

Vynt · October 2016

Eldurian said:

One thing that really irritates me is the fantasy games are a way for people to relive the kind of things they read about in books or see in movies. I can't count how many times that the thing that inspired be to come back to a game after a long period of absence was reading something in a book or seeing something in a movie that reminded me of that game and the good times I had playing it.

But one major thing we see in books and movies is the idea of an heirloom weapon. Luke get's his father's lightsaber. Rand Al'Thor gets his father's sword. You build your own lightsaber, you find ancient elven weapons in the troll cave at the beginning of your journey. Your uncle Bilbo gives you his beloved sword Sting.

These weapons are seldom replaced, and when they are it's something of great significance. They aren't simply swapping out for a better sword every few levels.

Some games do offer partial solutions to this. Weapons that level with you LOTRO. The ability to swap mods out on your gear to make it relevant longer in SWTOR. But then they screw it all up, like how in SWTOR raid gear / top tier PvP gear had modules built into it that couldn't be swapped into other items. I mean it would have been simple enough to just give raid gear soul bound mods so that you can put the mods in the gear you actually want.

But no, for some reason there is something wrong with that.

I don't know about anyone else, but replacing my sword every couple levels diminishes the idea of an epic hero's journey which is the ONLY thing that theme parks have over sandboxes. The fake hero's journey you go through in the scripted storyline that ultimately is about as heroic as reading a book. Take that, and theme parks truly have nothing.

Rand actually went through quite a few weapons. His father's sword was destroyed, he then used a sword of fire, then Callandor, then the sword from Aviendha, Callandor again later on, various ter and sa angreals. Rand went through quite a few weapons, some were definite upgrades!

Loke666 · October 2016

Tsiya said:

Yes, there's no room for alternative methods anymore. The raccoons must get their shiny! The best time I had in a game was in SWG as a MCH/Pistoleer/Dancer/Medic. I wore my maskscent and taming clothes all the time. If my pet didn't hold aggro I had the defenses to take it. Didn't use buffs or armor. I could even melee, when I swapped pistoleer for fencer(Gaffi sticks FTW!) It wasn't the most efficient, but it was fun. And I looked good doing it.

Well, you could put that effort into character development instead, you could loot skillpoints, attributes, skills and abilities instead of you do things right.

You will not get rid of the entire gamble thing anymore, far too late for that but character development through loot might not necessarily mean with gear.

Vynt said:
Rand actually went through quite a few weapons. His father's sword was destroyed, he then used a sword of fire, then Callandor, then the sword from Aviendha, Callandor again later on, various ter and sa angreals. Rand went through quite a few weapons, some were definite upgrades!

True, Rand is a bad example. King Arthur used one or 2 blades depending on the version, Excalibur and possibly Cadburn.
Conan just picked up whatever he found that seemed useable, not really caring about quality and avoiding any magic.
Luke used 2 lightsabers, his fathers and then one he made himself but that was probably more a ritual to make one himself then an upgrade.

Some gear is nice but it is who wields them that really matters in myths and real world.

acidblood · October 2016

cameltosis said:

...
Gear, for me, has always been about building the "perfect" set. I used to take great pride in planning out a set of gear for my character, then going out and collecting, then equipping it and making use of it. There were distinct phases to gear that hit all the right spots. I got excited during the planning phase. I felt satisfied when I got new pieces. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I completed it. I then got excited again when it came time to using the new set.
....

Lol, I remember doing that back in the Vanilla WoW days, and because I didn't (and wasn't going to) raid, each piece of gear generally came from a different source. Also, because most stats actually meant something for each class, the choices weren't always cut and dry.... I wonder if I've still got the spreadsheet

These days (playing FFXIV, though I imagine it's much the same, or worse, in WoW) it's just Set1 > Set2 > Set3 : Patch : Set4 > Set5 > Set6 : Expansion! And while each 'reset' is its own mini progression (which is somewhat satisfying to 'complete') it quickly reaches the point where all the new stuff is just as easy as the old, only now everything has larger numbers (but still at the same ratios) and the old stuff is reduced to little more than an AoE grind for cosmetics and daily / weekly bonuses.

Which is not to say that vertical progress should stop at level cap, or there shouldn't be occasional 'gear resets' that re-draw the base line for 'high end gear', but to answer the OP, yes, there are too many meaningless gear changes / 'upgrades', that are generally far too large*, and ultimately only serve to invalidate more content than they enable; a better progression system is very much needed.

* I never really understood the need to constantly have each gear upgrade be a large jump, e.g. +10%, so 100 > 110 and 1000 > 1100, instead of merely incremental, e.g. +5, so 100 > 105 and 1000 > 1005. Yes, as numbers get larger the relative values get smaller, but having smaller relative values not only means older gear is relevant for longer (OMG choice!, OMG can enjoy the rewards of effort for more than a week!), but also means the progress path is linear instead of exponential (and you don't have end all your values in 'k'), and if you're just going to give gear away as drops / token rewards for content that players do because it is supposedly 'fun' then does it really matter if each step is only a small upgrade?

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