The importance of not invalidating previous content with expansions.

Hrimnir

I apologize ahead of time if i made a topic in this vein, but in some of the recent discussions, something came up that i feel needs addressed or brought to light.

One of the great things about original EQ and earlier MMOs is the lack of mudflation (or it having been severely slowed down, particularly in comparison to modern mmos).

What i mean by that is if you spent 1000 hours playing the game and got some really cool nice stuff, that stuff was still relatively good in the next expansion.  So while the best 1h dagger in the game previous expansion might be say 20dps, the very best 1h dagger in the new expansion might only be say 24 dps.  Definitely better, but not stupidly so.

Contrast this to a game like WoW.  When WoW went into BC, you could have a full suit of the best raid equipment in the game, and you would start getting dungeon blue (rare, not epic) con drops that were better than your raid gear before you even reached the new level cap.  This was stuff you basically out leveled in 10 or 20 hours of playing (if not sooner).  I remember getting a green con quest reward staff at around level 67 that was better than my super awesome staff from molten core.

Now, why Blizzard did this is because they were catering more to the casuals than the raiders.  They didn't want the majority of their player base to have reason to be jealous of the people who could/would invest a lot more time then they could, so effectively speaking they "reset" the player base with each expansion.

While as a business decision this was wise (the casuals are and always will be the bread and butter money makers in a subscription based massive MMO like that), it wasn't a great long term solution, and it was a primary factor of creating the idea or feeling of being on a gear treadmill.

The biggest issue that this caused is it made it 100% pointless to do any of the previous content.  Contrast this with EQ where plane of fear/hate, vox/naggy, etc, where still regularly raided even in Velious.  The reason is because the items were still relevant, they were still decent items even in the latest expansions.  A secondary benefit is that it allowed the more casual guilds to have content they could partake in that was no longer being contested by the more top tier guilds.  It was just all around a good thing.

A very key requirement for all of this though is long/longer leveling times, and item rarity. You have to feel like the time you invest is worth it to get the item.  If you know you're just going to spend 10 hours getting an item, and only 5 hours to outlevel it, then again, it becomes an issue of "whats the point?"  You might as well just spend the time leveling and get to max level where the time spent getting items isn't going to be invalidated by leveling.

Contrast to EQ where if you spent 10 hours getting an item, you could reasonably expect to have that item for a long time, first, because you wouldn't just outlevel it, and 2, because "good" items weren't just handed out like candy.

wanderica

Hmmm.  I agree that complete gear resets every expansion (like WoW) only makes the gear treadmill feeling worse, but the polar opposite creates issues as well, albeit at a much slower rate.  There's no issue after the first expansion, or even after the second, but eventually, guilds will stop running old content, either because they're tired of it or that they, finally, farmed all they need from it.  This is when the issues start.  What about new players?   Where's the catch-up mechanic? 

Eventually guilds will avoid taking new members that they have to go back and gear through old content, because it's not part of their weekly routine.  Furthermore, gearing them in current content becomes pointless because the rarity of drops makes those needed items very exclusive.  Tanks first, then healers, followed by Utility/DPS according to DKP is a loot system that addresses the rarity of certain items, but simply isn't friendly to those new players. 

I think there is a solution to this that could work great.  One of my favorite systems is in DCUO.  There's never a level cap increase.  You just get more and more powerful with gear, and you must work your way through each tier.  It's a grind, sure, but it keeps ALL content relative.  It does have one huge downside though, and that is that it becomes more of a lobby based game at max level.  I find that sad, because the world is actually very engaging and fun to be out and about doing hero or villain stuff.  Too much rambling here.  I would suggest a development cycle that only increases level cap every third (after the first) expansion.  That way, each level cap increase comes with a gear reset to encourage game and community growth, while the the middle two expansions allow for a more horizontal growth by expanding crafting, adding a .5 raid tier, allowing upgrades or improvements to existing gear pieces, or even a difficulty increase within the same tier via a new raid or dungeon.  Just a few thoughts.  Good points in the OP though.

fivoroth

When I was raiding in vanilla I did it for fun not for the items. For me those items were a means to an end, to experience the content. When BC hit I was quite happy and I did some raiding then too and I loved it. I was never that attached to my gear, this was not what the game was all about for me. And I certainly didn't need gear to make me feel important lol.

Also what's e alternative? Can you imagine if people had to do vanilla, bc, wotlk, cata, mop raids before they can do the new content? Who are they going to run that old content with? It's more of a new game every time. Once You miss an expansion, you've missed it for good. You can't reexperience those past versions.

The whole raiding game is pointless if you don't enjoy it. Do you only raid for the items?

wanderica

I still stand by what I said previously, but after rereading the OP, I wanted to make another point.  From what I remember from BC beta, Blizzard didn't cater to the casuals.  They simply wanted to tune heroic dungeons (a new concept at the time) to be completed by those that were geared from standard level 70 dungeons, which, in turn, were tuned to be completed in level 70 quest greens and blues.  I disagree that it was for the casuals.  BC was the least casual friendly expansion content to date, especially considering the attunement processes that were in place.  They simply chose a gear reset as a design choice to get people into the new content instead of having to rerun old stuff.

Wizardry

Yes OP,i have mentioned this same  flaw in game design several times.
What makes the whole  idea far worse is when you basically lock out content to players unless they have that next tier of gear and that is just terrible game design.
I got to witness the whole ordeal as FFXI changed a lot to this type of design.Then i saw it again in FFXIV and  decided to leave the game because i just don't like that progression LOCK type of game.That type of design is a forced grind lock.
When i began FFXI you could fight near anything with total noob beginners gear,it was more abut your class/setup group setup and using the proper spells and abilities than your gear.

If i compare this type of game design to real life ,it really shows it's true face on being a terrible design.This type of design popular in FFXIV and Wow for example is like saying you have two hockey players and only one can be good because he has nicer gear,nicer skates and a really expensive hockey stick.That of course could be totally false as the player with the crappy gear could very well be three times the better player.

It seems so many system designers don't like to put common sense into their designs,they are just lookign for ways to create grind/longevity even if it makes no sense.

Hrimnir

Wizardry said:

Yes OP,i have mentioned this same  flaw in game design several times.
What makes the whole  idea far worse is when you basically lock out content to players unless they have that next tier of gear and that is just terrible game design.
I got to witness the whole ordeal as FFXI changed a lot to this type of design.Then i saw it again in FFXIV and  decided to leave the game because i just don't like that progression LOCK type of game.That type of design is a forced grind lock.
When i began FFXI you could fight near anything with total noob beginners gear,it was more abut your class/setup group setup and using the proper spells and abilities than your gear.

If i compare this type of game design to real life ,it really shows it's true face on being a terrible design.This type of design popular in FFXIV and Wow for example is like saying you have two hockey players and only one can be good because he has nicer gear,nicer skates and a really expensive hockey stick.That of course could be totally false as the player with the crappy gear could very well be three times the better player.

It seems so many system designers don't like to put common sense into their designs,they are just lookign for ways to create grind/longevity even if it makes no sense.

Precisely.  Its a matter of balance.  Some games were too far into the skill realm of things and gear became meaningless, take early Age of Conan for example where the difference between nude and an entire suit of awesome gear was about 5%.  Other games, like WoW (particularly later wow) were entirely the opposite end of the spectrum.  I mean think about the fact that even as early as WOTLK you could SOLO molten core.  SOLO.  Thats absurd when you think about it.  If someone from Luclin era EQ tried to go solo even a random mob in plane of fear, they would have gotten their ass reamed so hard it would have become a meme.

What was great about EQ is that it struck a nice balance.  Because EQ was a skill based game (in so much as your chance to hit, damage, etc, was primarily determined by your offensive skill and 1h blunt, 2h blunt, etc, vs the mobs defensive skill) then items became modifiers on those base skills.  They didn't become gates to your ability to complete (or overpower) content.  One of the things i always talk about that was great about EQ was the fact that if like 200 level 20's wanted to get together and try to take down a level 40 hill giant, they could actually have a chance. And on the flip side of that coin, one super geared out level 60 couldn't walk into a place like lower guk and WTF pwn it.  They might could hold down 1 camp of a few spawns, but if it were WoW, they could have waltzed through that dungeon like Achilles taking a stroll through a garden.

Whereas in a game like WoW there are so many hard locks, whether its "you're X number of levels below this mob and you 100% cant hit it", to "well you *can* hit it, but because your weapon only has XYZ DPS rating, you would have to stay alive for 20 years to do enough damage to kill it.

To extrapolate a level 10 might hit for 10 dmg, whereas at 20 he can hit for 50, and at lev 30 he now hits for 150, and at 40 its 450 and at 50 its 1500 (or whatever, you get the point).  Whereas in a game like EQ, a level 10 might hit for 8 or 9 dmg with a 1h sword, but at level 50, he is only hitting for 40 or 50 dmg.  A definite ramp up, but not stupid mode.

These all seem like small things, but they're really all cogs to a much bigger much more important machinery that is incapable of effectively operating without all of these elements working in unison.

Kyleran

EVE already has solved the problem, I flew a Raven Battleship in the 4th month of playing back in 2006 and on occasion still fly one today.

In fact I regularly fly ships today that I flew back in my first year or two in the game.

Doesnt mean new ships havent come out, but they almost always require more extensive skill training and cost significantly more to fly, which makes Tech 1 hulls still relevant.

One key fleet doctrine ship is a 90m isk T1 Battlecruiser. Another is a 900m Isk Tengu T3 strategic cruiser.  Both are regularly flown depending on the situation.

Of course, sometimes the capital fleets come out with ships ranging from 4 billion isk to 70 billlionn but again, their use is highly situational, and by no means universal.

While I realize we're talking ships, at the end of the day they are just "gear" and similar principals can probably be applied to fantasy and other genres.

Hrimnir

Kyleran said:

EVE already has solved the problem, I flew a Raven Battleship in the 4th month of playing back in 2006 and on occasion still fly one today.

In fact I regularly fly ships today that I flew back in my first year or two in the game.

Doesnt mean new ships havent come out, but they almost always require more extensive skill training and cost significantly more to fly, which makes Tech 1 hulls still relevant.

One key fleet doctrine ship is a 90m isk T1 Battlecruiser. Another is a 900m Isk Tengu T3 strategic cruiser.  Both are regularly flown depending on the situation.

Of course, sometimes the capital fleets come out with ships ranging from 4 billion isk to 70 billlionn but again, their use is highly situational, and by no means universal.

While I realize we're talking ships, at the end of the day they are just "gear" and similar principals can probably be applied to fantasy and other genres.

I actually flew a raven back when i played as well, great ship (i actually bought a Navy Issue Raven, but never the less).  EVE though is really a whole different ballgame, and a lot of the things that apply there won't work outside of it.  First, its a PVP game, and a lot of the entire premise of the game is based on the idea of shit getting blown up for good.  Unfortunately that type of mentality doesn't really fly (pun intended) with the PVE crowd, and for good reason.

I think most of these discussions being in the Pantheon forum are meant to apply only to a PVE situation.

Kyleran

Hrimnir said:

Kyleran said:

EVE already has solved the problem, I flew a Raven Battleship in the 4th month of playing back in 2006 and on occasion still fly one today.

In fact I regularly fly ships today that I flew back in my first year or two in the game.

Doesnt mean new ships havent come out, but they almost always require more extensive skill training and cost significantly more to fly, which makes Tech 1 hulls still relevant.

One key fleet doctrine ship is a 90m isk T1 Battlecruiser. Another is a 900m Isk Tengu T3 strategic cruiser.  Both are regularly flown depending on the situation.

Of course, sometimes the capital fleets come out with ships ranging from 4 billion isk to 70 billlionn but again, their use is highly situational, and by no means universal.

While I realize we're talking ships, at the end of the day they are just "gear" and similar principals can probably be applied to fantasy and other genres.

I actually flew a raven back when i played as well, great ship (i actually bought a Navy Issue Raven, but never the less).  EVE though is really a whole different ballgame, and a lot of the things that apply there won't work outside of it.  First, its a PVP game, and a lot of the entire premise of the game is based on the idea of shit getting blown up for good.  Unfortunately that type of mentality doesn't really fly (pun intended) with the PVE crowd, and for good reason.

I think most of these discussions being in the Pantheon forum are meant to apply only to a PVE situation.

How about how DAOC did it? They had a cap on every stat, so if you created your build to max out strength when an expansion came out that new axe of str +8 didnt help increase str at all vs your old axe of str +5.

 It just gave you an opportunity to shift those points to another stat, say fire resistance which would be well below cap.

It was not possible to max all stats, even after years if expansions, and it even kept crafting relevant because the could be created with exact stas you desired to round out your build.

Also, while the game was RVR focused, it had strong PVE as well and many players had different gear sets depending on the situation in PVE.

heerobya

To play devil's advocate, one nice thing about out-leveling content like in WoW is going back later, often solo, to see content you never did when it was "current" and it also is great for the transmog system.

However, in general I do agree.

The very concept of leveling and zones/content with different levels requirements etc. just serves to split players, rather than what SHOULD be the goal - to bring players together.

Systems like downscaling help, rarely do you see upscaling used.

The real solution, IMO, is to lesson the delta between noob and veteran, keep all content relevant at all times, horizontal progression over vertical etc.

Kobin24

Absolutely love this post OP, great points!  Something else to mention was the fact that the content was still "dangerous".  I can't tell you how many times in EQ that I died to a bunch of greens because I thought I was indestructible in an old zone with my raid gear (Obviously I learned I wasn't).  In the more modern MMO's, once you've obtained raid gear, the dungeons and lower tier'ed raids are an absolute joke.  In EQ; they were just easier, not steam rolled.  EQ did a great job by way of Epic Quests of sending players back to their old stomping grounds.  Another quick note about the gear - I hope it starts off low like EQ.  To get a +5STR or +9Intel item was like hitting the jackpot in early EQ.  I got excited when I would hit that moss snake for 12 points of damage.  Now, it seems like most MMO's you're hitting for 100+ right out of the gate and AOEing as many mobs as possible

Kajidourden

Kyleran said:

Hrimnir said:

Kyleran said:

EVE already has solved the problem, I flew a Raven Battleship in the 4th month of playing back in 2006 and on occasion still fly one today.

In fact I regularly fly ships today that I flew back in my first year or two in the game.

Doesnt mean new ships havent come out, but they almost always require more extensive skill training and cost significantly more to fly, which makes Tech 1 hulls still relevant.

One key fleet doctrine ship is a 90m isk T1 Battlecruiser. Another is a 900m Isk Tengu T3 strategic cruiser.  Both are regularly flown depending on the situation.

Of course, sometimes the capital fleets come out with ships ranging from 4 billion isk to 70 billlionn but again, their use is highly situational, and by no means universal.

While I realize we're talking ships, at the end of the day they are just "gear" and similar principals can probably be applied to fantasy and other genres.

I actually flew a raven back when i played as well, great ship (i actually bought a Navy Issue Raven, but never the less).  EVE though is really a whole different ballgame, and a lot of the things that apply there won't work outside of it.  First, its a PVP game, and a lot of the entire premise of the game is based on the idea of shit getting blown up for good.  Unfortunately that type of mentality doesn't really fly (pun intended) with the PVE crowd, and for good reason.

I think most of these discussions being in the Pantheon forum are meant to apply only to a PVE situation.

How about how DAOC did it? They had a cap on every stat, so if you created your build to max out strength when an expansion came out that new axe of str +8 didnt help increase str at all vs your old axe of str +5.

 It just gave you an opportunity to shift those points to another stat, say fire resistance which would be well below cap.

It was not possible to max all stats, even after years if expansions, and it even kept crafting relevant because the could be created with exact stas you desired to round out your build.

Also, while the game was RVR focused, it had strong PVE as well and many players had different gear sets depending on the situation in PVE.

This is a great solution.  Particularly if you only increase this cap (and it needs to be a hard cap by the by) marginally with new gear sets.  So while the general stat increase across the board on a new set of gear is +10 the cap only goes up to +5.
I think for this to work though you need to have stats reminiscent of FFXI/EQ.  For instance if the STR cap is 100 and a new gear set comes out and the cap goes up to 105, then you need to have secondary and even tritiary stats that are relevant to DPS.  So while STR determines how high your average attack hits for, maybe another stat that determines the range that it can possibly go.
What I DON'T want to see is this system in place with FFXIV style stats where one stat is all you pump and the extra increase in other stats is basically pointless.

Amathe

Ha Glory! Preach it brother. I hate when expansions trivialize past content and rewards. Really hate. I have quit more than one game over that.

AngryElf

This was no more apparent to me than the day I played the Rift Storm Legion expansion.  After 10 hours, half of my raid gear was trash, not even salvageable for useful craft components, and the old continent was all but deserted.  It really made it seem like everything done up to that point was a waste of time.  It was basically a full wipe/restart as far as gear progression.  That's a frustrating game design. 

Dullahan

There is no faster way to invalidate old content and leave areas of the world a ghost town than to make new stuff way better than the old. It should be a very gradual progression, and this is a topic I believe Brad and Joppa are well acquainted with.

I stopped playing WoW forever when I replaced raid armor with quest greens.

zanfire

This was a big reason FFXI (for a while at least) felt like it had so much endgame content, it didnt make everything irrelivant in a short period of time. Evern years later you could fight old HNMs and Sky and whatnot and still get gear that was comparable or worth the effort. When they did add better gear pre-99 days it always seemed like they were big leaps and kept reasonable enough that the gear you had would be just fine to do newer stuff without feeling like your completely gimped.

FFXIV does the complete opposite and i cant stand it. Its not even every expansion, its every other patch they would make your gear throw away for the next set. Making all the stats super basic and only needing very few to get better along with zero special stats and it felt like a fashion show game than anything. Just knowing your gear will be outdated in a couple patches didnt motivate me at all to keep up with it and takes away from the feeling of really accomplishing and earning that awesome item/gear.

The second i know a game has item levels or some version of that i instantly get turned off from it..sadly that design is in almost everything now.

Rattenmann

This is a hard topic to do right.
EQ1 did it best as far as i am concerned, but for that to work we (the players) need to accept a few things that we did not see in over a decade.

Highest Moblevel != best loot
Raidgear != replacement for every slot

This is how EQ worked. Originally it used to have a level 50 cap.
I remember the Glowing Black Stone, pre Kunark it used to be one of the best held items for a caster. Dropped by a necromancer,.. roaming an area for level 5+ toons. He (actually i think it was a she,...) was a level 8(?) mob.

The same zone had the fishbone earring. Something almost everyone wanted to be able to breath under water. Dropped by a fisherman, which was level 40ish.  

Thinking about it,.. that was one of the magical things about Everquest. Great drops could be EVERYWHERE. Exploration, finding that rare named standing at a lake, fishing. Roaming the Karanas, killing a mob, looting a cloak,... not understanding why a mage starts to bitch at you since he was looking for that cloak for weeks haha.

If we can get that back. If items have very special uses. If items don't just have more of the same, but OTHER stats. Situational gear. God,.. i am about to say it... resistgear! Whatever. If all that comes back, we can easily create a game that does not make new gear and content screw over the old stuff. I don't think i replaced my glowing black stone untill late into Velious (2nd expansion). The fishbone earring was not on my list because necro,.. dead man floating :-)

To get this right is really not an easy task. If you overdo it, lowlevel content will be farmed by highlevels too often. If you only have like 1 or 2 items like this it will not prevent new xpacs from screwing over old content. We would need a HUGE world to make this happen. Enough alternatives to go. Not like "you go here or there", but a list of 5-10 zones for every level range at least. The more choice we can get into the game (item wise), the easier it is to rehash what EQ did right by accident 16 years ago.

Alders

Rattenmann said:

This is a hard topic to do right.
EQ1 did it best as far as i am concerned, but for that to work we (the players) need to accept a few things that we did not see in over a decade.

Highest Moblevel != best loot
Raidgear != replacement for every slot

This is how EQ worked. Originally it used to have a level 50 cap.
I remember the Glowing Black Stone, pre Kunark it used to be one of the best held items for a caster. Dropped by a necromancer,.. roaming an area for level 5+ toons. He (actually i think it was a she,...) was a level 8(?) mob.

The same zone had the fishbone earring. Something almost everyone wanted to be able to breath under water. Dropped by a fisherman, which was level 40ish.  

Thinking about it,.. that was one of the magical things about Everquest. Great drops could be EVERYWHERE. Exploration, finding that rare named standing at a lake, fishing. Roaming the Karanas, killing a mob, looting a cloak,... not understanding why a mage starts to bitch at you since he was looking for that cloak for weeks haha.

If we can get that back. If items have very special uses. If items don't just have more of the same, but OTHER stats. Situational gear. God,.. i am about to say it... resistgear! Whatever. If all that comes back, we can easily create a game that does not make new gear and content screw over the old stuff. I don't think i replaced my glowing black stone untill late into Velious (2nd expansion). The fishbone earring was not on my list because necro,.. dead man floating :-)

To get this right is really not an easy task. If you overdo it, lowlevel content will be farmed by highlevels too often. If you only have like 1 or 2 items like this it will not prevent new xpacs from screwing over old content. We would need a HUGE world to make this happen. Enough alternatives to go. Not like "you go here or there", but a list of 5-10 zones for every level range at least. The more choice we can get into the game (item wise), the easier it is to rehash what EQ did right by accident 16 years ago.

FFXI did it the same way and the game was better for it. There were a lot of low or mid level items that were best in slot. Sure they were camped like crazy but that's what made the game feel so alive and busy all the time. Players weren't funneled into high level zones but were spread all over, as was the gear.

I'm not a fan of all these catch up mechanics that every new expansion seems to bring these days. There's no emotional attachment to things that get easily replaced and players get too easily bored and move on. I'd like to see items become more difficult to acquire but last longer in the process.

Pepeq

So you would rather, say acquire the Sword of Doom as a level 12 dwarf killing some random rabbit that had a drop rate chance of 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% that basically was so powerful as to negate any potential drop for at least 22 expansions, than acquire new weapons as you leveled up through said expansions.

I have the Sword of Doom... I've had the Sword of Doom for 22 expansions now and it looks like it was built when 8-bit graphics was king.  My friend over there has the Dagger of Insult which looks like one badass weapon and it only does 1 damage less than my weapon currently.  Every weapon that he has equipped has looked cooler and cooler and always increased in power.  I on the other hand have had the same boring weapon for 22 expansions because it was an extremely rare drop and it was totally OP until now. 

Mendel

Incredibly good observation and immensely important topic, not only for Pantheon, but for all new MMORPGs.  But it requires discipline on the developers part to not add +100 HP where a simple +5 would do.  Revamping the combat system where new over powered mob attacks require inflated player defense mechanisms is the surest course to Mudflation.   Time and effort will favor making that item +100 instead of +5 almost every time.  That's the fundamental problem with every HP based system I've ever encountered.

Dullahan

Pepeq said:

So you would rather, say acquire the Sword of Doom as a level 12 dwarf killing some random rabbit that had a drop rate chance of 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% that basically was so powerful as to negate any potential drop for at least 22 expansions, than acquire new weapons as you leveled up through said expansions.

I have the Sword of Doom... I've had the Sword of Doom for 22 expansions now and it looks like it was built when 8-bit graphics was king.  My friend over there has the Dagger of Insult which looks like one badass weapon and it only does 1 damage less than my weapon currently.  Every weapon that he has equipped has looked cooler and cooler and always increased in power.  I on the other hand have had the same boring weapon for 22 expansions because it was an extremely rare drop and it was totally OP until now. 

That is a pretty big exaggeration. Of course after a while, you expect to replace a really rare and powerful item, but with the Glowing black stone mentioned above, it was best in slot outside of god-loot for quite a while and also provided magic resistance, which made it even more useful in any situation you needed that particular resist. The item was also very rare. I played a wizard from EQ launch, and I never got my hands on the GBS. We didn't even know exactly what caused the mob that dropped it to spawn back then.

The point is, two things have to happen to keep older content relevant and busy. Spreading content and rare items of various level and quality throughout every zone, and making sure that stat creep is very gradual. Items must be worthwhile for longer than it takes to move to the adjacent zone with slightly harder mobs, or the focus of the game will only be to get more levels and do the highest level content... like every other crap MMO in the last decade.

zanfire

Pepeq said:

So you would rather, say acquire the Sword of Doom as a level 12 dwarf killing some random rabbit that had a drop rate chance of 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% that basically was so powerful as to negate any potential drop for at least 22 expansions, than acquire new weapons as you leveled up through said expansions.

I have the Sword of Doom... I've had the Sword of Doom for 22 expansions now and it looks like it was built when 8-bit graphics was king.  My friend over there has the Dagger of Insult which looks like one badass weapon and it only does 1 damage less than my weapon currently.  Every weapon that he has equipped has looked cooler and cooler and always increased in power.  I on the other hand have had the same boring weapon for 22 expansions because it was an extremely rare drop and it was totally OP until now. 

no game has done that or will do that. Your just making an extreme example that would not happen anyway to make it seem like its a terrible idea. The method of not having a constant ladder has been used in multiple long running MMOs, so it can and has worked.

Rattenmann

Pepeq said:

So you would rather, say acquire the Sword of Doom as a level 12 dwarf killing some random rabbit that had a drop rate chance of 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% that basically was so powerful as to negate any potential drop for at least 22 expansions, than acquire new weapons as you leveled up through said expansions.

Not at all.
Weapons are always a special case. Even original EQ did not do it (much) differend then todays mmos. 
A weapon could remain relevant for 2 or 3 expansions tho, yes. Simply because the increase in item power used to be very low. So a godly weapon could outdamage raid drops from the next xpac. But most of the time the newer weapons added some kind of effect, like taunt. God warriors without taunt weapons really had no use lol. Also there was the chance to get better weapons. Just not via questing or group content, or even easy raid content. It usually took a few months to even reach a boss, let alone kill him (we have spend 1 month to get to Rallos Zek for example and only downed him 6 months later). 

So your "old" raid gear actually did help you get better items in new xpacs. You never started a new xpac with raiding in quest greens.
 
Hell, for comparison: I did my first raids without even having ANY item in some slots. Loot was just rare. And most common loot had nothing but a very marginal stat, or even armor only. Getting an item that actually did affect you enough to notice it was something special. 

Please take this into perspective. We are talking about a game that did so many things differently, that you simply can not compare it to modern MMOs. Things said in this topic would never work in modern MMOs, unless some core mechanics change as well.

Some of those where already mentioned. Items should not give huge boosts to begin with and new xpacs should not simply double item value.

A possible example of a better item that does not make an old item obsolete, think about this tunic:

Tunic of the base game
Armor: 5
Int: 10

Tunic of the first xpac
Armor: 7
Int: 7
Con: 5

Tunic of the second xpac
Armor: 7
Int: 9
Magic resist: 25

All three tunics would remain relevant to some degree. For pure glass cannon fights you could use the oldest Tunic. The second is used if you just can not avoid some damage at the cost of some of your own damage. The third is almost clearly supperior to the first, unless you really need every tiny bit of damage. Also the second stays relevant if magic resist just isn't needed, but you still take a beating.

And no, i did not mind to have my Glowing Black Stone for almost 2 years. There where enough slots to upgrade, also progression used to be more diverse. Items alone did not make a good toon. Their value was FAR FAR lower then we are used to now.

Current gen MMOs see items as the only form of progression, while leveling is only a kind of joke that you have to get done with asap. OF CORSE nothing in this topic even makes the slightest sense if you put it into a game like that. But we all hope Pantheon will not be a game like that.

Akulas

Spent a long time to get T3 in WoW even that annoying ring from Kel'Thuzad which seemed to never drop. Then BC greens was better than full raid gear from the previous expansion.

Baitness

ReallyNow10 said:

While I agree with OP's general point, he is wrong about EQ.  IMO, EQ started to die (in terms of vision of the game, if not subs) when it introduced the POK (Plane of Knowledge).  POK was a central hub with portals everywhere.  Overnight, the trade chat and presence in West Commons and Freeport died.  Dead.  Overland travel died, and with it the many instances of higher level players stopping to help lower level players.

Just a bad, bad design decision.

The game world must be preserved and have lasting relevance, regardless of character level.  Oh, you may out-level a zone, in terms of bashing monsters, but there needs to be a reason to revisit that territory, be it trade, training, crafting, resting and re-couping, or just passing through.

In my experience, when the game world loses its relevance, the game starts to die out a bit.

I was not playing EQ, but I find this to be one of the biggest problems with design today.  Interestingly enough, the solution that developers have come up with is not to do away with instant travel, but to make megaservers so that everything stays populated no matter what.

I still don't really like the instant travel, though.

@OP, this has been my issue with expansions for the longest time.  I HATE expansion packs, they ruin games.  I cannot remember the last MMO I played where I felt that had an expansion that didn't hurt the game.

epicpantz

what if as the story changes over time, and level dependancy by geographical locale disappears,,....  in other words...  the borders change, and so do the difficulties within them, so that will also give reason to continue to move around the world?
and why not have some harder mobs mixed throughout anyway?  lower levels duds would have to avoid them for later, or gang up on em, and there'd be something for higher levels to do back in this area later.

jazzcercise the daemons in my keybored