The problem of gear becoming obsolete every next expansion
Xez
Member
I see there are already considerable discussions about the importance of not making CONTENT obsolete, but what about equipment and gear?
This is an incredibly frustrating reality players of every MMO have always faced. With each new major content update, almost every single piece of gear from anything previous is now totally worthless and a waste of time to farm for.
Not just with content updates, but just with levelling up in general. Farming for equipment during the levelling process always feel incredibly silly to get if you know it's just going to automatically be obsoleted in 30 minutes the next time you level up.
I think FFXI during the 75 cap era is the only game I know of that I feel solved this problem because of it's general philosophy on equipment. Besides weapons, the level requirements of equipment was almost always completely irrelevant in considering their overall use and power. There were tons of powerful pieces of equipment far lower than the level cap that carried on as the best equipment all the way up to the highest levels.
This is an incredibly frustrating reality players of every MMO have always faced. With each new major content update, almost every single piece of gear from anything previous is now totally worthless and a waste of time to farm for.
Not just with content updates, but just with levelling up in general. Farming for equipment during the levelling process always feel incredibly silly to get if you know it's just going to automatically be obsoleted in 30 minutes the next time you level up.
I think FFXI during the 75 cap era is the only game I know of that I feel solved this problem because of it's general philosophy on equipment. Besides weapons, the level requirements of equipment was almost always completely irrelevant in considering their overall use and power. There were tons of powerful pieces of equipment far lower than the level cap that carried on as the best equipment all the way up to the highest levels.
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However we have no idea on how the power creep is supposed to look like. Gear is supposed to be responsible for ~50% of the characters strength so it is really interesting what the customization is going to look like.
tldr: Intrepid is focusing on having many choices rather than amping up everything
― Plato
This.
While im not sure it applies allready to high level gear when an expansion hits, i am sure they could make it so you can melt your old gear into crafting components for the next tier.
I highly doubt that there will be anything even closely resembling tiers like in wow. I wouldnt be surprised if there would be incentives to to constantly rechase the same gear with different secondaries to accomodate the requirements of new enemies
― Plato
I see nothing wrong with spending 1 week to get my 40lv gear which will last me a month or two, before I hit 50 and then craft the new tier.
I see nothing wrong with the next yearly expansion, which will take me to explore new zones, fight new bosses, craft/loot new gear for the new lv cap.
But when you have games catering to story questing, like ESO, then you have expansions every 3 months and hundreds of irrelevant gear sets.
I really dont understand people playing mmorpgs and hating on lv cap expansion, new skills, higher gear tier, new zones, towns, bosses.
I guess people have been too used to playing dungeons and battlegrounds, focusing only on leader boards and dps meters and they dont see the point of world additions.
nodes should effectively keep all/most of the world relevant for all levels of play. At least on paper we need to wait and see how it will work out in the alpha/beta versions
― Plato
It's unfortunate you don't understand because this is the very reason why I quit WoW. I absolutely hate that with every expansion it renders all your previous hard work completely irrelevant. For some re-gearing might take a couple of weeks but for others (many others) who are not in the most hardcore guilds, re-gearing could take possibly months. (and again, makes that gear you previously spent months getting, worthless). I have zero interest in doing this type of meaningless and endless progression.
Level cap increase also creates number escalation which has now gotten just silly. Have you seen the damage numbers they pump out it WoW? Another example of this is Diablo3, I have seen damage in the millions (and billions?!) which is needless and completely stupid.
Now for some games, where the game is mostly PvE, it makes more sense because that's all you are doing anyway but for other games that have a emphasis on PvP, it does not. If you are playing a game to battle other players it makes no sense that you are required to PvE for an extended amount of time to gear for PvP over and over and over. This is where horizontal progression works the best in games like DAoC, WAR, ESO and others.
What would you enjoy ideally in AoC future expansions?
Can you name what additions you'd like?
50 gear being used for 55 gear would be a great idea.
So I am guessing the point of this question is, if you aren't grinding for new gear, what's the point of new content?
New places to explore, new dungeons to conquer without new gear/set drops (this means the dungeons will become more challenging), new races, new classes (maybe, since 64 is already a lot
Saying that I'm also not opposed to new gear occasionally. Maybe new content will bring minor upgrades like a better ring, weapon or a recipe for some new type of armor, etc. I would make the top top gear exceptionally difficult to obtain so that you could spend a long time getting it but once you had it you could do other things.
As I said previously, in a game that is more PvP centric (like AoC will be) it makes more sense to have horizontal progression. I know you disliked the seemingly endless gear sets in ESO (and I'm not here to defend it since no game is perfect) but their horizontal progression system I thought was excellent.
World of warcraft used to do this very well, all the way up to Mists of Pandaria. When I first saw that warlocks were getting a spell that was literally flavored after an entire expansion, cataclysm, I jumped in joy. I love that sort of progression the most. My class and its npc grouping should progress as the world around us evolves and i believe this should be done in a meaningful way that isn't necessarily tied to having bigger numbers pop up on my screen because now im lvl 70 instead of 60.
Not for the first time, I'm wondering if MMOs can move away from player character levels entirely...
I am a hardcore PvPr and gear is the ultinate reason that mixes pve and pvp in an open world mmo.
We disagree monk. Nothing more to add from my side
A very in depth territory control system like EVE has would be fun in my eyes. Maybe "outposts" or something of the sorts within the nodes that guilds can fight over 24/7 and control and get small benefits from somehow that expand the more territory you have.
We are allowed to disagree on things, thank goodness. Life would be boring otherwise
But now i have a question for you @George Black, you say you are a hardcore PvPer but yet you would rather spend a large chunk of your time every expansion grinding gear in some PvE dungeon??? Wouldn't it make more sense, as a PvPer, to only have to do that once (or at most rarely) so you can get to all that PvPing with little worry about being required to PvE?
The game will have very little dungeons.
The "grinding" will happen out in the open, where people can attack you, or you can attack them, potentionally starting guild wars and other real rivalries.
This setting is much better than dungeon runs or meaningless BG matches.
Nothing better than venturing out of the city gates with friends, never knowing who we will end up fighting with for a spot in the sun.
I am not "required" to pve. I play the mmorpg, which is PvX.
Wars
PK
Boss stealing
Caravan attacking
All out in the open.
The L2 fortresses were a bit meh..
But the clan halls like devasted castle were a much better concept.
If they do any such concept in AoC it better be more meaningful than farming Knights Epaulettes.
I hear you, but have a slightly different take. I love PvP and would find it much more compelling in MMOs if gear weren't part of the equation.
It's part of the mmo equation.
Otherwise you play ForHonor or Mobas.
Gear in mmos means you spend time exploring and beating the world, farming crafting materials.
It means you were part of team effort, showed commitment and focus in achieving peogression.
Gear meant a great deal of pride.
And also, there is nothing more satisfying than beating an enemy better equiped than you.
Or shift the equation...
That would mean break up the game.
Mmorpgs are PvX, open world.
Not battlegrounds like mobas, or PvE dungeons like some Co-op stage.
Anyway. Some people like dungeon runs for titles and 'the fun of it'. (Where is the fun running the same sterilized dungeon so many times?)
Others like BGs.
I like open world PvP, and the fact that every day is a new scenario with bew bad guys and jokes.
And AoC aims to be that.
Don't get me wrong - 100% agree on this. Would just like gear to be less of the deciding factor as often as it is, v. skill, environment, etc...
Without spending time to go around gathering for materials, completing quests to get blueprints to craft a set, the world becomes an RP themepark.
Once you or me spend time to get the appropriate gear, skill becomes the one and only factor in combat.
But players need to put in the effort to get whats needed to be competitive, otherwise we have meaningless instant gratification, which is what most mmos are about these days.
good take. I appreciate a pvper that understands mmos are not an fps shooter.
Well you are referring to what you 'hope' AoC will be like but atm we really don't know, especially when it comes to things like endgame, gear progression, etc. And from what I gathered. there will be plenty of dungeons. Maybe what you are referring to are instanced ones?
Anyway, most of what I was talking about came directly from my WoW experience that is already history, not AoC speculation......PvE grind for gear, new expansion, grind for gear, new expansion, grind for gear, ad infinitum. So yes, if you played WoW you were required to PvE for an extended length of time every expansion. If oyu didn't do so you couldn't compete with everyone else that did the grind. Seems pointless to me and should probably be annoying to the truly HC PvPer.
That's why I prefer the games i mentioned....I get my gear out of the way and can then spend my time RvRing full time 24/7/365 and not have to worry about doing it all over again when the next expansion comes out.
I would much rather have a horizontal progression than a vertical one. @George Black I don't know why you don't think this game won't have a lot of dungeons, as per a reply from Margaret on their FB page, there will be alot. The main one they are showing off of late (with the dragon) is only for levels 1-10. I can think of 4 including before mentioned one just off the top of my head, but I'm not here to talk about the amount of dungeons the game will have, I"m not worried about that at all.
I want to talk about gear progression and level increase. Dungeons will come up in the talk though.
I'm going to use GW2 as a prime example of what they could have done and I hope Ashes does something similar. The genre needs a change, a nice shake up if you will. Let me explain...
In GW2 they have the weapon lock attacks per your weapon, the special attacks as well and even further abilities that you can unlock. Now, how about in the first expansion we let the character specialize in whatever type he/she wants? Deep Dive if you will. So as an example, lets say I'm a wizard, i have all my spells which range from fire to water or just regular magic....so with the new expansion I can deep dive into a specific school and that's all the type of new spells I will learn/get. These spells will be nothing but let's say, air, which would be all electricity/air based attacks, which I chose as my deep dive specialization. They don't all have to be spells either, they could be abilities as well, but they would only be in the school of air. The same could be for any archetype be it fighter who deep dives into in your face slashing type attacks, a rogue could deep dive into different diblitating attacks, etc. Now, these attacks wouldn't be more powerful than the original spells, but just different and you the player get to really choose the type of class you want to play.
The gear would feed off the above, as in there is no level increase only a deep dive with bonuses to your chosen deep dive. It's all about customization.
Monsters or Denizen's aren't that hard either, of course there should be new ones with an expansion, but they can be more powerful without too much trouble, change their AI, give them a certain resistance, and of course new attacks. The possibilities are really endless.
There should be new dugeons and areas to explore, this is where the node sytsem shines that will keep the old content new and relevant.
So let's say you cleared the dungeon in the core game and your level 50. New Xpac comes out, and you find out that to help augment a new peice of gear it requires something from the said dungeon, but now if you have a rogue with you he/she finds(with their arhetype ability) a new passage way that wasn't there before, the rogue investigates and boom a whole even bigger and deeper dungeon is on uncovered below the old one.. Who knows what has been buried deep in the depths of time?
I wanted to keep this short and to the point, I hope my idea got across, but I do agree with some of the posts, nothing more disheartening that to grind for top gear and the first mob you kill in the new xpac is better than what you have on, and the killer of all for me is standing next to say a level 60 in their groovy armor and you're a lowly lvl 10 and you can't hit him and it just says miss, even though he is standing still doing nothing but laughing at you...it's just....well....silly.
Dark Age of Camelot did many things right when it comes to this. Level cap was 50, the best gear was player made and enchanted, if we discount the mistake that was the artifacts in the Trials of Atlantis expansion. And the endgame content wasn't focused on the gear treadmill.
See, someone else gets it
I do have to temper my other statement about "get it and forget it" because in remembering DAoC (one of the games I always refer back to as a shining example of many things done right), your gear was not eternal. It would degrade over time and with every repair you knocked a tiny bit off it's lifespan. Eventually it could not be repaired back to A grade level and you would then have to go hunting for a replacement. I thought that was a great idea an made sense because nothing lasts forever. So this would occasionally give you the incentive to go PvE again. Don't know if something like this will work in AoC but I would be all for it.