Jobeson said:FatedEmperor said:What I want to see is a situation where items with stats start dropping post 10. I don't care about seeing rarity indicated (again with the exception of legendary+ items) and I personally think it would be a better system if the gear dropping wasn't color coated. The whole color-coated meta has created a mentality in people where people feel bad when they replace items as you yourself sorta referenced. Funny thing is that regardless of how gear works in an MMO it will always eventually become outdated as the game in question ages.
I wasn't meaning players should feel bad about it. I am pointing out the item that is supposed to be well above average is quickly trash by design. We see people talk about this very problem for expansions. All their hard earned top quality gear worthless, but they don't realize that is the literal design they are asking for when wanting everyone to vendor thousands of magic items. If you build the game around ever scaling trash magic items as a baseline then you end up with exactly that. Any expansion that increases the level cap would continue that progression of turning previous gear worthless. The lvl 57 Giant rat will drop trash magic items better than your lvl 50 Raid gear. It is an absurd system.
People want magic items to be iconic.
People want expansions to not turn their hard earned gear into trash.
People want to look unique and varied from one to the next rather than full patchwork armor for the ever changing stats.
"People want magic items to be iconic."
- Again this is why I view magic items and items with stats as completely different concepts. Magic items for me fall along the lines of J-boots, class legendaries with buffs... etc. Items that have a lasting impact and are useful in some way at all levels whereas items with generic stats are just that.
"People want expansions to not turn their hard earned gear into trash."
- I get how replacing an item with a green item sucks. I've had to do it through multiple expansions and yes it does suck, but there has to be some kind of gear progression when expansions are added otherwise why even add the expansion in the first place. It's just a natural part of progression and even if you are able to hold on to that level 50 epic until level 60 you eventually should have to replace it otherwise why add a new raid tier.
"People want to look unique and varied from one to the next rather than full patchwork armor for the ever changing stats."
- All I have to say on this is the point is a transmog system because everyone continuing to wear the exact same raid set isn't really unique and varied either.
FatedEmperor said:"People want magic items to be iconic."
- Again this is why I view magic items and items with stats as completely different concepts. Magic items for me fall along the lines of J-boots, class legendaries with buffs... etc. Items that have a lasting impact and are useful in some way at all levels whereas items with generic stats are just that.
"People want expansions to not turn their hard earned gear into trash."
- I get how replacing an item with a green item sucks. I've had to do it through multiple expansions and yes it does suck, but there has to be some kind of gear progression when expansions are added otherwise why even add the expansion in the first place. It's just a natural part of progression and even if you are able to hold on to that level 50 epic until level 60 you eventually should have to replace it otherwise why add a new raid tier.
"People want to look unique and varied from one to the next rather than full patchwork armor for the ever changing stats."
- All I have to say on this is the point is a transmog system because everyone continuing to wear the exact same raid set isn't really unique and varied either.
Clickies are in every MMO out there. I think in current MMOs they are the only items that matter because everything else is worthless by design. Jboots are about as iconic as having a mount though. Not a particular mount, but any mount. Iconic items in EQ went way beyond just Jboots. Since you like the feeling of gearing up so much why not do the same to clickies? Why should a lvl 10 Jboots work on a lvl 20 character? Why not require ~15 different pairs of jboots as you level. Item progression is so fun and meaningful why limit the fun to gear with stats?
Progressing armor following expansions isn't something that sucks, it is the very design you are asking for. It is not a flaw it is the main feature to the ilvl system you pitch. You are asking for every item to quickly be worthless below max level knowing max level will eventually go up. This design pushes people to focus on the end game as the only place where the gear you work for is not easily replaced. This is the exact opposite of what VR claims they want to do. How you can call upgrading your raid armor with common magic items from a giant rat as an improvement over upgrading your raid armor with a new raids drops I will never understand.
If you want constant gear progression, transmog, and raid sets of gear apparently, I have like 50 MMOs for you to check out. They all do exactly that. ilvl gear upgrades are one of the worst ideas from WOW that took over all MMOs.
None of the wow clones/killers talk about being a spiritual successor to EQ. None of them want to bring back the iconic magic items only EQ really had.
I think it needs to be defined what exactly is a "magic item". Is it any item with a bonus to stats? We do not know if the team plan on going with a colour rarity code. I'd consider a magic item a 'green' but to someone else it may be 'blue' and above.
Personally if I wasn't getting any 'green' items or items with bonuses to stats before level 20 I would feel pretty unmotivated. At the end of the day we play these games partly to increase power and progress. At the same time I don't expect to be changing each item of my gear every level.
Replacing gear every 5-10 levels seems good to me but everyone will have a different view on this. In that example I would also be crafting as I progress through the levels accessing more options for gear too.
Of the MMOs I've played Vanilla WoW comes closest to what would appeal to me. Yes I don't remember most of the greens I owned but I certainly remember all of my blues and some green quest rewards.
That may seem to casual to some people but just my two cents
Jobeson said: Having played vanilla wow, you replace armor much faster than that. There are times where you will upgrade a single item slot 3 times over a single level. Do you agree the wow ilvl gear system puts the focus on max level?
We must have had different experiences. I only ever leveled a character to 60 and then 70, I didn't participate in 'end game' content. I was a very casual player and certainly was not changing an item in the same slot multiple times/level. Most blues you got from a dungeon lasted a good while.
I don't understand what you mean by ilvl gear system?
I do think stats were overinflated and certainly I would be happy with less frequency of gear dropping but I don't think a huge dropoff is necessary otherwise I worry things could be a bit mundane.
Adrenicus said:I don't understand what you mean by ilvl gear system?
I do think stats were overinflated and certainly I would be happy with less frequency of gear dropping but I don't think a huge dropoff is necessary otherwise I worry things could be a bit mundane.
WoW and virtually every MMO these days uses a formula for item stats. While it is more complicated than this you can think of it as selecting settings to output an item ( lvl10+Boots+Cloth+Green+INT&END = the same balanced stats every time) This means every time you level your gear is once again outdated. It puts the focus on end game because that is the only place the level increase is taken out of the equation. Pausing the treadmil that trashes items until an expansion starts everything over again. Leveling up then causes the items from the most powerful creatures in existance, items with a fabled history from key lore events to become weaker than the rusty shiv of a peon because level plays the largest of the roles in the formula.
This means the lvl 6 boots that drop from lvl 6 creatures are higher AC and stats than the lvl 5 boots that drop from lvl 5 creatures. It is an efficient system but it is needed because everyone is expected to be at their basic green item level in the game. Devs don't need everyone to loot an item every 30 minutes to assume they are at a minimum "green" level armor. That used to largely just be tied to leveling. A sword was a sword plate was plate. As you leveled you did more damage with the sword. You didn't equip stronger swords every level.
What I am at this point ranting about is closer to how EQ ran magic items. In terms of classic WoW leveling there would more or less be the only purple magic items in the game. You may end up using that purple for 20 levels or more. Buy the cool looking black armor set, until you get something actually magical it is just as good. Gear being rare means you are actually happy to see these rare drops even when its not for you. Iconic items then start to pop up when all the rogues are struggling to get a certain dagger from a certain rare spawn. You know even though they are lvl 20 they struggled hard to get that item or paid a pretty penny. Even when they upgrade at lvl 40 they may put that original dagger in their off hand as it has served them so well and they don't have better.
20+ years later, when kids have literally been born then left for college, people will still remember the name of that dagger that became so iconic. Just ask people to tell you of the short sword of the ykesha or the stein of moggok or any of the other items that have Pantheon saying they plan to have iconic gear again. If any of those items became worthless after 5 levels no one would remember them.
