[Gear] State Stabilization

[Azarael]

- I agree gear grind _is_ a part of mmo gameplay, but i dont feel its a positive gameplay pillar that should be embraced.. Especially it shouldn't have the massive influence it does on balancing / power that it does now.. Classes should be defined by what they are, not what they're wearing..

They should, but consider the genre's target audience. People who enjoy skill and winning under their own power are less likely to play MMOs, as other games are designed to cater far more to skill and far less to RNG, gear/stats and other factors irrelevant to skill. MMOs were always designed to appeal to the type of player who gets his kicks from having an intrinsic advantage over other people based on time spent, rather than from outplaying other people.

- To say 'without the gear grind there is nothing to play for' : is a subjective oversimplification on more than one level.
You can't even guess my reasoning/draw for playing. ( To further this, i would still play, if all the gear stats were nerfed ).

Well, there are always outliers. I'm one, which I guess is ironic. A lot of people, though, are here for that sense of progression and the side effects it brings in terms of community. Otherwise they'd be playing something else.

[Stilton]

Glad to be considered an outlier given the alternative.
I'm speshul *licks elbow*


But seriously, if im taking the essence of what you're saying... Your hypothesising that if gear was scaled back... you'd lose players?

Even if you balance all the gear.. So, 'good gear' was still good, because it had say +5 stat...

..But because its currently +50, someone's going to log in and say:
'Oh my god they nerfed +45 str off my blue boots' and ragequit.

Even though, -everyone else- was also nerfed ... So, relatively speaking they're still as powerful compared to everyone else... But basically 'gear' has just been diminished overall to have less impact.


See i find it very hard to emphasise with that point of view...
Maybe that's because i lack imagination, it just seems irrational to say 'this would be a bad idea' without even giving it some testing considering it does fix a lot of the "problems" you have described.

Spoiler:

Also **** those people... Because competitive play is the only way to play, and if you're not with me and my reasons for playing ... you're my enemy and i will do everything i can to condescend to you and your idiot viewpoint.
[ For those of you in the audience about to reply: that's irony/satire kids. -- For those -still- about to reply: I ACTUALLY THINK THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. [ see: irony/satire ] ]

Keep irony/satire out of this thread - Penril

[Jaycub]

Spoiler:

I don't think it's so much MMO's, but the combat system... tab target combat specifically.

Skill in this game is I don't know the word, "unexciting"? Our guild is full of nerds, and we always catch awesome plays and comment on them, but it's extremely rare. For instance last night our RP timed perfectly his stagger on a SW that was self punting (extremely small window of success) and that was cool and "exciting" but doesn't happen often, and really the opportunity doesn't show itself much in this game.

A lot of "good" plays come down things like knowing when to switch targets, when to get out, calling out certain things, dropping buffs, predicting your enemy. Not really spectator sports type things but stuff only people who are deeply invested in the game get. For instance most people into video games could watch csgo and "get it" and appreciate the good plays, but someone whos never played dota watching it would probably think it's like watching paint dry, this game falls into that latter category.

Not related to OP's proposal - Penril.

I agree that the type of player in MMO's need the carrot on a stick, or an extremely cultivated competitive scene, or a very alive "realm pride" type of feeling to stay interested. But as long as there is some kind of progression, however small I think people will be interested in continuing to play. That progression doesn't have to be power wise either.

Look at the current state of the server, virtually all of your regular playerbase has hit a brick wall in progression on at least one character if not more probably months ago, but the server isn't dying or bleeding numbers.

[sotora]

With respect to the above comment about meta stagnation, consider the following:

1) Balance changes themselves cause meta shifts, gear isn't necessary for that. I used balance changes and reworks alone to keep a game with no gear progression alive for a number of years. Actually balancing any kind of game is very difficult, so there will always be some kind of change to make.

2) Even if the game's elements were perfectly balanced, the sheer number of viable options and combinations available in such a game would create significant depth.

I agree to an extent but I think there is also validity in below arguments:

a) Patched class balanance changes are usually more or less gradual (in terms of amount of overall game balance being changed - it is 1-2 classes rather than everything) and often expected.

Balance shift caused by new gear - both by changed power levels and new effects on items (procs and other) change balance on bigger or lesser extent through all classes and their relative power dynamics between and end effects of those changes are less predictiable for both playerbase and developers.

Why many players come back to MMORPGs for expansions and leave relatively shortly after? One thing is obviously new "hard" content - such as new regions, new dungeons, etc but is that all - especially for PVP players? Many PVP players don't give rat ass about new quests, zone or even dungeons.

I would risk saying that they come back for new balance and for opporunity to discover, dismantle, experience and exploit this new balance and they leave (or cut back playing time) once they extinguished it by discovering and mastering it all / most.

b) If relative balance between top gear sets in same for new tiers of gear like it was between previus tier of gear - then acquiring new set of gear is becoming more of a chore. Because you need to grind out gear after it's release only to came back to pre-patch situation vs other well geared players without added benefit of discovering and exploiting new balance.


Ofc just my opinion and I can be wrong. There are ppl here propably more knowegedable in both MMORPGs and online games design overall.


PS. Penril - I do remember your question - I will answer it once I will both have time and willingness to write good releavant post with examples.

[Azarael]

The only response I have to that is that if what you are saying is true, and I suspect that it is, balance efforts will permanently end.

[Stmichael1989]

Spoiler:

If the reason as to why balance changes are futile and must come to an end is that vertical progression inherently alters game balance (which I think we've established by now), why not opt for horizontal progression? Balance careers as they are now with annihilator, and each new set that is introduced is not a vertical upgrade (higher stats) but a horizontal one (different stats or benefits.)

This way, you're not dealing with scaling issues each new set, only the different interactions. A great example of this is team fortress 2. Each of the 9 classes are balanced around their base loadout, and every new item has advantages and disadvantages over the base item. If a new item causes balance issues, it's immediately identifiable and can be addressed directly rather than having to go back into the simultaneous balancing of 24 different classes.

That's not what we are discussing in this thread - Penril

[sotora]

The only response I have to that is that if what you are saying is true, and I suspect that it is, balance efforts will permanently end.

To clarity - I don't want to discourage you. There are plenty of people that have more experience than me in Warhammer Online and MMORPGs and are frankly better players than me and /or have more knowledge than me about it both about mechanics and competetive / meta.

Last but not least - ROR project is project of you and rest of ROR team so in the end you should propably do what you think it's right and what you want to work/play in. After all it is not my project.

[Collateral]

Spoiler:

If the reason as to why balance changes are futile and must come to an end is that vertical progression inherently alters game balance (which I think we've established by now), why not opt for horizontal progression? Balance careers as they are now with annihilator, and each new set that is introduced is not a vertical upgrade (higher stats) but a horizontal one (different stats or benefits.)

This way, you're not dealing with scaling issues each new set, only the different interactions. A great example of this is team fortress 2. Each of the 9 classes are balanced around their base loadout, and every new item has advantages and disadvantages over the base item. If a new item causes balance issues, it's immediately identifiable and can be addressed directly rather than having to go back into the simultaneous balancing of 24 different classes.

Wouldn't this limit the amount of styles you can play to your current rank? I don't know how it's done in TF2 so I'm just asking.

How about this idea. A system that sort of merges the horizontal and vertical progression. So, when you hit T4 there is a number of different gear sets that enable you to play a certain style. Quite like the current situation with anni and merc gear. Why would we not expand on this? There is a pretty big amount of different looking gear in the game files I'm sure, even gear that was never used, and that gives you quite a lot of possibilities. So as you grow in rank, those sets also grow in tiers, meaning their stats increase. It doesn't have to be anything major, so it would still give you a sense of progression. Maybe on the very high end gear there could be some sort of a proc or a different stat. But again, it would have to be well balanced and nothing major, just to give you that sense of not having exactly the same gear all the time, and to make you a bit different from everyone else since you played so much to achieve that rank. Perhaps you could even tie some abilties to gear, but I don't know if that's a good idea, as there are not that many abilites for classes anyway.

Of course, this would require a lot of thinking. There is only a certain amount of viable and reasonable builds each class can have, as WAR is not like, say, Path of Exile, where certain classes can have almost the same build, and where the lvling tree is the shared by every class.

As I never got even close to rr 100 on live, I don't know if this was actually the system they used. Personally, I don't currently see huge flaws with what I just described. But there could very well be flaws of course, as I didn't put too much time into this idea, it's kind of brain stroming.

This thread is not about HOW to give players a sense of progression. It is about balance between gear sets. The reason so many people mention "progression" is because that's their argument for being against OP's proposal (in other words, "don't nerf higher tier gears because i need my progression") - Penril

[blaqwar]

Spoiler:

@Stilton: I again wrote a big wall of text but I really can't see what it has to do with this topic so I'll be brief. If you're so interested in using "empathy" to further rational discussion (what?) then I invite you to somehow fit and insert your flawed opinion that you call objective into this fact:

MMORPGs - Notice the RPG part, the acronym stands for Roleplaying Game. Do you know what roleplaying entails? Character progression. Are you claiming MMORPGs don't need character progression? Because taking away WAR's gear progression is essentially neutering all progression, leaving a shell of a game. Or are you claiming that WAR isn't an MMORPG? I'm confused as to what your claims are, apart from the fact that you don't like grinding.

Or am I missing something here? Please enlighten me with your objective opinions.

Enough with progression. Some are against OP's proposal because they want to feel progression (valid argument). Some people gave their counters to this (there are other ways to give us a feel of progression, there are other reasons to play the game besides progression, etc). Let's move on - Penril

[emiliorv]

Spoiler:

Because taking away WAR's gear progression is essentially neutering all progression, leaving a shell of a game..

I dont think that character progression is 100% linked to get gear progression. When grow in RR u hace access to new RPS to train new abilities.
My first MMORPG (and the best fun i ever had playing) was DAOC, and there was no gear progression through pvp rank, usually u run with the same gear at level 50 once u get a good template (always through pve/craft). The "only" thing u get doing rvr was RPS to train abilities (and ofc a bunch of fun doing it), and ppl keep going out rvr every day without complain about "rewards". well, there was a power gap between low/hig RR ranks, not in gear/stats but yes in abilities (mostly with very high cooldowns-like 30 mins)....well that was the "old times" and maybe the things works in a different way right now...

Enough with progression. Some are against OP's proposal because they want to feel progression (valid argument). Some people gave their counters to this (there are other ways to give us a feel of progression, there are other reasons to play the game besides progression, etc). Let's move on - Penril