Twinking was pretty much my favorite thing about EQ in the early years. It offered the opportunity to spend more time on my main collecting gear for an alt while simultaneously enabling me to try out new classes + explore new areas. I was really disappointed when they introduced the concept of recommended levels. That said, I understand why it exists, particularly if there is going to be a progeny system.
I like twinking only if it does not so over-power the player that it does not need groups to advance through content. We all know that a steady influx of new players is what keeps a game healthy but if those newly arriving players only meet stupidly overpowered twinks smashing through content with little concern and no risk will only serve to either drive those new players away or drive them to plat sellers so they can buy into power rather than earning it.
I loved twinking in EQ, not sure how EQ made everything so fun being one of the first major MMORPGs and all. Like some have mentioned it gives a great boost in replayability, newer players always loved having a twinky in their party to carry, occasional free gifts for new players is fun too(I've been on both ends of this!). Making a twinky in EQ really felt like doing a "New Game Plus". I am definitely voting for something similar to EQ's way of twinking.
Many newer MMORPGs have lots and lots of limitations, it wasn't very fun to twink if you can call it that at all.
I think making gear scale to a characters level, adding a small advantage and a great deal of longevity to the gear its self is a great idea. I have not seen any other great way to do it. It is just too easy to over twink a little toon and make it super human.. err dwarf.. um elf...
Based on how VR has described the loot system I am fully in favor of twinking. We shouldn't have to worry about twinks being able to walk through content solo or anything like that. Plus my wife has shown interest in the game, so it will be nice to be able to help our her characters even though she likely wont play as much as I intend to.
100% in favor of twinking.
If it REALLY gets out of hand, just put in a few stop gates. Something like loot tiers where levels 1-15 have a variance that gear can fall within, then levels 15-25 have another tier, etc etc. Basically a level 1 could use gear up to level 14 in power, but not anything from the next tier (say 15-25). However, nothing would prevent a level 15 from using a top tier 14 item, so you wouldn't be left high and dry forced to upgrade if you couldn't afford to it didn't get good loot drops.
Edit:
Additionally this would keep a viable market for top quality, lower loot tier items, as they could still be given to alts or new players. I feel there would be little fear of inflation in the costs to prohibit truly new players having these items too, as the demand for these (knowing they will eventually be out leveled) would be lessened. Plus, nothing would prevent lower level characters from finding their own random drop top-of-the-tier gear potentially (Im a big fan of RNG loot tables, with certain powerful unique ID gear from quests/dungeons but thats a discussion for another day).
I am totally in favor of twinking. In a group oriented game such as EQ and Pantheon, regardless how much gear you put on an alt you will still have to group to progress. Maybe it would be possible to solo thru a few early levels but eventually the difficulty outweighs solo ability. Plus it’s nice to be able to surprise a lowbie with a nice higher level item and see their reaction. +1 for twinking
DakmorKavu said:100% in favor of twinking.
If it REALLY gets out of hand, just put in a few stop gates. Something like loot tiers where levels 1-15 have a variance that gear can fall within, then levels 15-25 have another tier, etc etc. Basically a level 1 could use gear up to level 14 in power, but not anything from the next tier (say 15-25). However, nothing would prevent a level 15 from using a top tier 14 item, so you wouldn't be left high and dry forced to upgrade if you couldn't afford to it didn't get good loot drops.
Edit:
Additionally this would keep a viable market for top quality, lower loot tier items, as they could still be given to alts or new players. I feel there would be little fear of inflation in the costs to prohibit truly new players having these items too, as the demand for these (knowing they will eventually be out leveled) would be lessened. Plus, nothing would prevent lower level characters from finding their own random drop top-of-the-tier gear potentially (Im a big fan of RNG loot tables, with certain powerful unique ID gear from quests/dungeons but thats a discussion for another day).
I agree with Kaen, most modern MMORPGs do this sort of limitation and it's very restrictive. The way EQ did it was great, we could equip level 50 gear at level 1(sounds overpowered, but it actually wasn't), after 10-15 levels or so you're pretty much still better off grouping, but making a pretty big impact. I recall level requirements for procs, somehow that worked out pretty nicely too, not sure how it was decided to have ykesha proc at a random level 37(if I remember correctly), but hey it works, you're strong before, and then you get a boost when things start slowing down(as a twinky). It felt like when I level up and gain a completely new and useful ability, so exciting as a melee class.
+1 to Kaen's response. EQ handled it well in that respect with stat scaling with level (the higher the characters level the more benefit a stat brought), tiered damage caps, and required levels for item procs & clicky items.
I'm reaaaaalllllllyyy hoping they don't have tiered gear in this game at all. I completely abhor the modern MMO where gear from a lower level is always outclassed by higher drops. Bring back the amazing item economy from EQ where drops from higher levels tended to be better but weren't too uncommonly outclassed by early level drops. For example: Glowing Black Stone was a (very rare) level 13 drop and one of the top intelligence caster items even at level 50. Great/high value items could drop at almost any level range and some you wouldn't need to replace for a very long time and it was a major boon to the economy as even lower level players could participate instead of everyone just buying/selling the highest level drops.
I absolutely loved twinking alts, it was fun to me to sit down and make a list of items I wanted for the class I was making and spend a day or two in EC buying up items to fill each slot as best as I could with what money I had. Again a huge boon to the economy when you have players gearing up multiple characters/classes.
Twinking = a must. I had so much fun twinking out my alts and carrying a group of new players through dungeons. The thing I miss from my favorite MMO of all time, EQ1 was the ability to help new/low level players. It seems every other game I've played there were tons of restrictions on gear, buffs, etc when it came to twinking. Sometimes I would just take my main to starter areas and buff the players in the area, or help them with gear, quests, or coin. It was a nice break from grinding on my main from time to time. I made a lot of new friends this way. I really hope this game will allow us to use higher level items on our alts with minimal restrictions and allow us to buff players that are not in our group.
Twinking is an absolute must have. I dont like the idea of reccomend or required lvl gear. Hard twinking, most raid type gear is going to be non tradeable so it makes the whole gear designed for a lvl 50 on a lvl 1 moot. However there should be non raid gear that level 50s will walk into raids with before they manage to get the raid gear that is absolutely tradeable and able to be equipped by a level 1. The damage out damage in for twinks can be moderated with level statistic and damage caps and not so much armor or weapon restrictions. As much fun as it is for people to group in an MMO, I always enjoyed EQ twinking because, sorry folks this is still not a Utopia and people will not always be able to get a group. In such cases I loved being able to have a twink able to solo low level group content. Plus sometimes I feel anti social and just want to be productive in leveling by soloing instead of dealing with people. Not to mention, people farming for twink gear will help stimulate in game currency and trading which is a must have for any gear based game. Trading makes and breaks a lot of games.
Digitalgrave said:most raid type gear is going to be non tradeable
What makes you think this? It is my understanding that most loot, raid or not, will be tradeable. It sounds like non-tradeable items will be limited to things like epic quest weapons or other quest gear, and that the vast majority of items will be tradeable. I think VR intends to limit the usefulness of raid loot on low level characters in ways other than level restrictions and non-tradeable status.
I never considered things like the world dragons raid gear. Sky was raid gear, most of which was quested and you could not trade the peice of gear. VP, most non tradeable, VT, non tradeable, etc etc. Those were the actual raids of vanilla/expansion. The others were just tougher named mobs.
I'm actually in the no twinking boat, or at least if there isn't level scaling of gear. When a player with significant resources loads up a new character with top of the line gear it ruins the game play for everyone else sharing the same area. The over powered character either runs around soloing all the targets that normal characters would need to group to take down or they join a group and so trivialize the content that the rest of the group might as well sit on their thumbs.
New players do not get to learn their class if they do not need to pull their weight to survive. Also it is extremely frustrating to watch someone with 150k pp in gear just flatten the newbie zone while you try and kill a second decayed skeleton with your cracked staff. I would like to see level 5 crafted gear on a level 5 character be just as effective as level 50 gear on a level 5 character. Now by level 10 the level 5 stuff would be kinda bad while the level 50 stuff is now as effective as level 10 stuff.
Trasak said:
I'm actually in the no twinking boat, or at least if there isn't level scaling of gear. When a player with significant resources loads up a new character with top of the line gear it ruins the game play for everyone else sharing the same area. The over powered character either runs around soloing all the targets that normal characters would need to group to take down or they join a group and so trivialize the content that the rest of the group might as well sit on their thumbs.
New players do not get to learn their class if they do not need to pull their weight to survive. Also it is extremely frustrating to watch someone with 150k pp in gear just flatten the newbie zone while you try and kill a second decayed skeleton with your cracked staff. I would like to see level 5 crafted gear on a level 5 character be just as effective as level 50 gear on a level 5 character. Now by level 10 the level 5 stuff would be kinda bad while the level 50 stuff is now as effective as level 10 stuff.
Im fine with twinking so long as there are limiting factors. Twinking with the best gear available for your level is perfectly fine. Youd have had to put the time in to research and hunt for everything and will still be more powerful than the average joe passing through the levels. Twinking like it used to be in WoW which allowed someone to enchant their gear with more stats in a single item than your entire gear set provided is just overboard.
Either way doesnt bother me much. Game isnt huge on PvP it seems and even if it was I usually avoid taking part until endgame.