The problem of gear becoming obsolete every next expansion

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.

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Tragnar

afaik there is supposed to be *some* vertical progression, but I suppose they want to put heavy emphasis horizontal progression instead.

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

Sathrago

lower tier gear is used to craft higher tier gear. so I assume this will be the case if new expansions come out.

Amma

I think too, that the easiest way would be to use new Materials from a new Expansion to somehow upgrade the old stuff to a new level. As long as the materials arent too easy to get it should be then an interesting choice for every player if i want to grind that one dungeon for the new piece of armor or if i want to grind that likewise dangerous cave where i can get the special magic upgrade material....or something like that. The biggest reason for upgrade materials would be the possibility to upgrade your legendarys, because if you spent months for getting that one special legendary thing, than nothing hurts more than seeing it hanging useless on a wall.

Xenotor

Sathrago wrote: »

lower tier gear is used to craft higher tier gear. so I assume this will be the case if new expansions come out.

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.

Tragnar

I don't think you've read about the planned gear automatization. The gear progression is more about sideways progression when facing different types of opponents rather than pure vertical power increase. Also I suppose that the BiS gear is going to be quite straightforward, but there is at least for now the plan to have enchantment power increase with the possibility of destroying the enchanted item. So up to certain power level the enchantment is going to be risk free and after that you risk bursting it into flames.

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

George_Black

The problem is actually meaningless expansions, not gear progression.

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.

Tragnar

well I would recommend for you to read up on the node system.

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

PlagueMonk

George Black wrote: »

The problem is actually meaningless expansions, not gear progression.

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 don't see the point of world additions.

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.

George_Black

@PlagueMonk
What would you enjoy ideally in AoC future expansions?
Can you name what additions you'd like?

Warth

Sathrago wrote: »

lower tier gear is used to craft higher tier gear. so I assume this will be the case if new expansions come out.

50 gear being used for 55 gear would be a great idea.

PlagueMonk

George Black wrote: »

@PlagueMonk
What would you enjoy ideally in AoC future expansions?
Can you name what additions you'd like?

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

). Lots of possibilities beyond gear grind. There are also plenty of ways to be rewarded other than a gear drop for beating something (hell I am willing to complete a dungeon or difficult boss JUST for the silly title or tome of knowledge unlock, if AoC will have something like it)

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.

Sathrago

I agree with @PlagueMonk that if an expansion comes out I would rather see horizontal rather than vertical expansion. It doesn't even have to use the older high tier gear to craft the new expansion items, these could just be new sets that give different looks and bonuses that need to be crafted from low to high tier, giving even new players a new set of gear to craft up and wear. New ways to gain materials, new entire archetypes or augments to add to the existing ones, things that really make you feel like your character is evolving and getting better.

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.

CROW3

Sathrago wrote: »

I would rather see horizontal rather than vertical expansion.

Not for the first time, I'm wondering if MMOs can move away from player character levels entirely...

George_Black

Ill take new lv cap, skills and new gear tier over dungeon titles and mewningless runs any day. For me what you discribed is 100% meaningless content.

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

Bricktop

George Black wrote: »

@PlagueMonk
What would you enjoy ideally in AoC future expansions?
Can you name what additions you'd like?

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.

PlagueMonk

George Black wrote: »

Ill take new lv cap, skills and new gear tier over dungeon titles and mewningless runs any day. For me what you discribed is 100% meaningless content.

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

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?

George_Black

PlagueMonk wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

Ill take new lv cap, skills and new gear tier over dungeon titles and mewningless runs any day. For me what you discribed is 100% meaningless content.

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

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.

George_Black

Bricktop wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

@PlagueMonk
What would you enjoy ideally in AoC future expansions?
Can you name what additions you'd like?

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.

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.

CROW3

George Black wrote: »

I am a hardcore PvPr and gear is the ultinate reason that mixes pve and pvp in an open world mmo.

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.

George_Black

CROW3 wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

I am a hardcore PvPr and gear is the ultinate reason that mixes pve and pvp in an open world mmo.

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.

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