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Gear Dependency Vs. Player Skill (Poll)
Eronakis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,248
Gear Dependency Vs. Player Skill is an argument that is thoroughly discussed, especially in development. Let's define each.
Gear Dependency = Your Character does most of the work based off how you build your character through stats/gear. Player skill can take an affect but typically it's knowing a rotation and the fight.
Player Skill = The player output is doing most of the work and gear is merely a perk. Most games who use this method, are fighting/action based RPGs. Most people will consider this to twitch gameplay, however, player skill can be categorized into tab-targeting as well. - On the other side of the spectrum, player skill can also be constituted by knowing your class, rotation, mechanics, how to build your character ect.
Most traditional RPG's use more of a stat/gear progressional method to build your character to survive in combat. With the innovation of MMORPG's it has paved a way for players to increase player output that transitions into more player skill.
I have been warring with my self which holds true and may work best for MMORPG's as a whole. You see, I am typically a black or white thinker so I automatically consider one method may be better than the other. So in other words I always compare what is better and why. I have concluded that it really depends on the type of gameplay you're going for and designer's preferences for their audience.
Let's take WoW for an example. WoW, is intended for the super casual but also caters to hardcore players. WoW has always been mostly a gear dependent game, in PVP and PVE. In Wrath, Blizzard thought resilience was a great stat for PVP but it made gear dependency worse. If you didn't have high resilience you couldn't compete. In PVE, ilvl is something sought after and players won't choose you if you have a low ilvl because they know a higher ilvl will produce more damage, healing or mitigation. If I were to put percentages to WoW, I would say it's 75% gear dependent and 25% player skill. The player skill in WoW, comes from knowing your rotation, how to build your character with secondary stats and simply knowing the fights and not standing in stuff. But is Gear Dependency the right or wrong approach?
Personally, I think the best method is to have a 50/50 ratio. Or even a 60/40 ratio of player skill to gear dependency. One of the unique elements to RPG's is building your character. And most of that is through stats/gear. I do believe that gear should play a vital role in combat but I also believe that player skill should help overcome encounters. I felt Everquest was a decent example of balance of player skill and gear dependency. You can argue it fell into the 50/50 or 60/40 ratio.
I am curious to your thoughts on what you prefer as a gamer? Vote and let me what is your preference?
Does it not allow the OP to vote in your own poll anymore? I would vote for the balance of both.
Gear Dependency = Your Character does most of the work based off how you build your character through stats/gear. Player skill can take an affect but typically it's knowing a rotation and the fight.
Player Skill = The player output is doing most of the work and gear is merely a perk. Most games who use this method, are fighting/action based RPGs. Most people will consider this to twitch gameplay, however, player skill can be categorized into tab-targeting as well. - On the other side of the spectrum, player skill can also be constituted by knowing your class, rotation, mechanics, how to build your character ect.
Most traditional RPG's use more of a stat/gear progressional method to build your character to survive in combat. With the innovation of MMORPG's it has paved a way for players to increase player output that transitions into more player skill.
I have been warring with my self which holds true and may work best for MMORPG's as a whole. You see, I am typically a black or white thinker so I automatically consider one method may be better than the other. So in other words I always compare what is better and why. I have concluded that it really depends on the type of gameplay you're going for and designer's preferences for their audience.
Let's take WoW for an example. WoW, is intended for the super casual but also caters to hardcore players. WoW has always been mostly a gear dependent game, in PVP and PVE. In Wrath, Blizzard thought resilience was a great stat for PVP but it made gear dependency worse. If you didn't have high resilience you couldn't compete. In PVE, ilvl is something sought after and players won't choose you if you have a low ilvl because they know a higher ilvl will produce more damage, healing or mitigation. If I were to put percentages to WoW, I would say it's 75% gear dependent and 25% player skill. The player skill in WoW, comes from knowing your rotation, how to build your character with secondary stats and simply knowing the fights and not standing in stuff. But is Gear Dependency the right or wrong approach?
Personally, I think the best method is to have a 50/50 ratio. Or even a 60/40 ratio of player skill to gear dependency. One of the unique elements to RPG's is building your character. And most of that is through stats/gear. I do believe that gear should play a vital role in combat but I also believe that player skill should help overcome encounters. I felt Everquest was a decent example of balance of player skill and gear dependency. You can argue it fell into the 50/50 or 60/40 ratio.
I am curious to your thoughts on what you prefer as a gamer? Vote and let me what is your preference?
Does it not allow the OP to vote in your own poll anymore? I would vote for the balance of both.
What is your preference?
- Gear Dependency Vs. Player Skill67 votes
- I prefer the Gear Dependent model, character produces most of the work14.93%
- I prefer the Player Skill model, it should be up to the player to determine34.33%
- I prefer a balance of both, Player Skill and Gear dependency.50.75%
Comments
Player Skill only progression is pretty much a requirement for any sort of a "sport-like" setting. You need to have an equal footing to preserve the competitive integrity of the sport.
You could argue sports like Formula 1 are actually gear based, as a lot of effort goes into developing the cars. The development aspect becomes part of the sport itself and has interesting consequences. In games, this is different. Players themselves don't have control over the in-game assets, and are therefore required to use the systems provided by the developer. Any sort of gear advantage is then a result of simply obtaining better stuff (usually by a grind). In my opinion, this lacks the creative aspect of a Formula 1 "gear progression" and is not that interesting for the viewer.
MMORPGs usually get around this by having a level-cap. All of the players are essentially equal at the top, allowing for a relatively even footing in PvP.
Many gear-driven games are poorly designed, placing too much importance on highest level characters. This then makes the gear progression feel like a necessary barrier to entry, pretty much turning it into a chore. WoW is the extreme example of this, where a level 45 character is considerably weaker than a level 50 character.
I think a much better design would be one where people are able to specialise in disciplines. A player who invests a lot of time in their character would "unlock" new possibilities, rather than becoming simply better at what's already offered. This lets players of all levels contribute to the system and feel a viable part.
In my opinion, the attraction of gear progression is about making your character unique, rather than being necessarily stronger. When putting a Dungeon & Dragons group together, one might choose to be a thief, whereas another would be a mage or a swordsman. I don't think people choose a thief over a mage because they think it's absolutely stronger, but because they want to play out a specific experience. Gear progression in games should reflect this.
Games that rely on gear dependancy use gear as a gate to content. If your gear is below this level, you cannot complete it. If you gear is at this level, you can do it at the intended difficulty. If your gear is above this level, you can do it at a reduced level of difficulty.
Player skill simply means that the outcome of the fight is based off of the player's actions. All games require player skill. I know of no game where you can initiate combat, do nothing, and still win because your character is strong enough. They might exist, I don't know, but I'd imagine they'd be extremely boring.
There is a very close relationship between gear and player skill in typical mmorpg mechanics. Usually, gear is used to determine the level of player skill required. Got great gear? Player skill required for success is minimal. Got poor gear? Player skill required is a lot.
There is a further issue at stake in a conversation like this: do the combat mechanics allow player skill to shine? I would argue that very few MMOs really allow player skill to shine. In my opinion, player skill is a combination of the physical and intellectual capabilities of a player.
The physical is your typical twitch-skills: do you react quickly? are you observant? can you aim accurately? can you concentrate for 10 minutes in a row? These are skills that anyone can learn (baring disabilities) and simply require time to acquire. The move towards action-combat has placed a greater emphasis on physical player skill than past games.
Intellectual player skill is all about problem solving: do you know the tactics? do you know the correct rotation? do you know what to do when shit goes wrong? are you choosing the correct skill to use next? are you able to support your team mates properly? can you predict the other players actions? The move to action-combat has massively reduced the need for intellectual player skill. When you only have movement + 5 skills to choose from, how hard is it to know what to use next? With hardly any inter-class dependancy left in modern MMOs, plus the trinity class design reducing possible tactics, there is very little opportunity left for a "smart" players to shine.
Personally, I love games with deep combat systems that allow intellectual player skill to shine. The last one I played was LotRO before I left for SW:TOR in 2011. Between the resource management, inter-class dependency, large amounts of skills to choose from and the inclusion of 3 dedicated support classes, LotRO really let player skill shine. My captain (support - buffer) had a standard rotation of 6 or 7 skills, but about 30 situational skills (short duration buffs, triggered skills, defensive skills on long cooldowns etc) as well as a large array of consumables. It meant that at any given moment, I was having to make a decision about which skill to use next, a decision that was not easy given the large amount of variables. The decision was also meaningful - use the wrong skill or target the wrong person and it would have a profound effect on the outcome of the fight.
I was hoping SW:TOR would be similarly deep - each class had just as many skills as LotRO and there were 8 classes, rather than 7. Sadly, SW:TOR turned out to be really shallow. Resource management was ridiculously easy. Inter-class dependency was non-existent beyond threat and healing. You only had a few emergency skills. Every fight just became "execute rotation, avoid the crap, if below 20% HP use emergency skill". No brain power required.
My personal preference is that difficulty should be balanced around 80% intellectual difficulty, 20% physical difficulty. We should be winning fights because we understand the tactics, know how to work together in a group, fully understand our classes and thus choose the right skills at the right time. There still needs to be some physical difficulty - we should still require quick reactions, we should still require good observation of our surroundings and we should still be required to concentrate for extended periods for the hardest content.
From there, gear (and general character setup) should alter the difficulty by much smaller amounts. I am a big fan of horizontal progression, meaning that overall power level of any character stays the same throughout the game. Progression in a horizontal system is all about specialisation. Start off an all-rounder, then steadily unlock crit builds, burst versus sustained, AoE versus single target, glass cannon versus tanky etc.
With that in mind, I believe that content should start to be balanced around the absolute worst setups (bearing in mind everyone has the same overall power).
So, lets say you were going to do a raid with 20 of the worst setup characters you could imagine. All the DPS have specialised in burst aoe, but it's a single boss with masses of HP. Healer's have opted for HoT builds instead of big heals, despite the boss dealing burst damage.
In such a situation, that raid should be able to complete the content if all 20 players hit 100% of their capacity. This means everyone avoids as much damage as possible, never misses a skill in their rotation, never chooses the wrong skill, kills any adds in the right order, pulls levers / moves at precisely the right time. A single mistake and they fail. This is basically saying they'll never complete it as there is no way in hell that 20 players will play perfectly for the duration of an entire boss fight. The sorts of players that are capable of that would not be using the worst setups.
Then, take 20 players with the absolute best gear / customisations / setups. In such a situation, I believe they should succeed if they hit 50-70% capacity. As the customisations they've chosen should be best suited for that boss, they'll be able to hit DPS levels easier, they'll be able to soak up a few more mistakes and stuff.
The mix of 50/50 gear and skill is what cuts the deal, you gear up, you upgrade, from the lowest to the highest tiers and when you reach the end-game, it's when it depends mostly on your skill.
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Usually is MMOs mainly gear based with just a little player skill though which is a shame, actually getting better should help more.
50/50 is probably the best thing if we are talking purely PvE, enough progression to make things feel meaningful but not so much that gear is the only thing that matters and people wont bother improving their gameplay0 because getting better gear is easier.
If gear is lost upon death then I prefer a mix.
I side with the groups of people who play 'Dungeons and Dragons' and believe that parties should be thinking and fighting their way through the campaign. This means if we are going through a giant volcano that:
~Our Armor should be made to protect against Fire and Earth attacks/damage.
~Our Weapons should be strong against the encounters we have in the area.
~The party should stick together and compensate each other's weaknesses with their skills and abilities.
~Progression/Rewards should give us equipment to make us stronger in the current area AND/OR give us equipment that will help us in the next part of the campaign.
In order to give this experience to everyone out there in a video game I would:
~Level Sync and Gear Sync the entire party to the area. This forces the party to work together and not overpower everything on gear alone.
~The Dungeon should be made for a Party that includes a LOT more than simply just bashing your way by force through everything.
~Can't be Soloed (not due to difficulty of monsters, but the area being designed for the party itself to traverse)
One of the games I enjoyed playing back then and I used to make my own modules for was the old Neverwinter Nights. It was amazing how back then one could write a decent module that combined creatures, treasure, story, and enough traps to really keep players on their toes.
I remember having more fun playing that game than most MMOs I played.
Gear-Based Progression is NOT the way to Roleplay. The original point of roleplaying was to take on a role of a character that was part of a story. The gamer was given the chance to live in the story and even change the outcome of the story.
Today, we give a player a character-class, along with heavy gear-based progression and throw them into a PvP Arena or your typical 90% - 99% of quests are KILL-QUESTS and we call that ROLE PLAYING, since no one has the patience to actually go through a story.
The best example is how I carry around different sets of low slot items in my haulers. Of course I have enough cargohold expanders to fully fit my ship with them but if I'm ever running partially full I start pulling them off and adding tanking modules just incase someone attempts a gank.
With LotRO, especially at launch, I had about 5 different sets of gear to suit needs. As it had horizontal progression at endgame originally, you had tons of options for how to build your toon and each option was useful for different situations. Being horizontal, you could complete the content with any option, it would just alter your tactics. I found this to be an awesome system as it allowed tons of flexibility in group setups and tactics.
Sadly, when they switched from horizontal to vertical (radiance) with Moria, it killed all flexibility so only had the one set. When they realised their mistake a few years later and switched back to horizontal, the flexibility came back so I collected multiple sets again.
SW:TOR was more about the specs. I had PvE DPS, PvE Tank and PvP DPS sets for my shadow.
There are a ton of other reasons that FPS PvP is more popular, including:
All these things can be solved in MMOs (well, maybe not the learning curve. We can do it, but the result would be very simplistic combat systems, just like shooters).
In a normal PvPer game leave the cheesy moves/leveling/advancement behind.
In a PvPer game where there are things like Flag laying/territory control/Economic Dominance games. You can allow for some cheese, but as a player I should be able to take away your cheese or have options to force your hand to not bring your cheese.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
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At least part of the combats should get your blood pumping no matter what gear you got and that part should not just be restricted to the endgame. You need at least enough difficulty to get the players to learn their class without just being able to outlevlel and outgear anything that offers the slightest opposition.
You need a balance, upgrading gear is fine in a PvE game but the game also should teach you to play better as you progress or otherwise there is just a huge grind and little else. Totally replacing good or average gameplay with gear is a mistake if you want to keep those players for a while.
Heck, almost all MMOs actually require you to learn to play but sadly it is usually just for the endgame, but that means most players suddenly go from easy to hard without any time to actually learn to play besides grinding gear and that hurt the longterm playability badly.
A good game slowly ramp up difficulty from easy to hard instead of just ramping it directly from zero to hundred in the endgame. Gear certainly should help but if it helps too much the game gets a boring grind very fast.
Also, when you focus too much of the gameplay on getting better gear you tend to forget to make combat (not to mention the rest of the gameplay) fun. When looting is way more fun then combat you rather quickly turn the game into a grind.
Or at least that is my view.
I really dislike games that force a fail on you because your gear doesn't pass the check, so essentially I should be able to try and kill something when vastly undergeared and under leveled and not auto fail cause my gear isn't QL 23543....
It something I like about DDO that you can make a really good build, use mental knowledge of the game, and OP gear to be OP and zerg your way through things.
Dunno I would say a balance of both without one or the other being a requirement otherwise its autofail.
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In fact, there is no single answer. Different games can do different things.
Mabinogi has two examples of this. Spirit weapons, which you can essentially sacrifice a bunch of gear into to get amazing stats (but the weapon has energy requirements and repair requirements that makes it so that anywhere you do use it almost always means that you lost more income than you could ever make out of your challenge). Another one is the spear of light, which is again another item with well beyond normal stats, which takes damage like a normal weapon but in order to repair it you need to use your character's actual AP (which is used for advancing your character skill/ability wise, though the game does allow for unlimited growth).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
In reality,to me at least pvp is pointless in a rpg setting because there is no balance and never will be.
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The thing is these advantages take pre-planning, wit, guile, and are realistic. I'm ok with that.
When your attacks bounce off of me harmlessly because I've played twice as long as you, there is no wit and guile involved. It certainly isn't realistic. And personally I don't find it all that fun from either side of the disparity.
Your opponent never stood a chance. You used no wit, guile, or charisma. What take away does your opponent have other than "play longer" or "swipe harder". They can't use that experience to come back and beat you next time.
It's like when you enter a cheat code into a game that makes you invincible and able to one shot everything. Sure it's fun for a few minutes to run around god moding your way through everything but about 5 minutes later you're back to playing the game normally because you want a challenge. At least that's how it is for me.
I don't want to god mode my way through lower level areas. I don't want to god mode my way through lower level players. I'm ok with there being no stat based disparity and having to rely entirely on wit and skill. If there is a disparity, I want it to exist within the realm of realism. I want to be like veteran knight in armor vs. a poorly geared squire at most. I have the upper hand but if they land a good hit on me it still hurts. I don't want it to be like superman vs. an ant.
For me at least roleplay isn't this all or nothing thing. It's not either all me or all my character. The character is the vehicle through which I express myself in the game world. If part of my "Hero's Journey" is me learning to be a better player that's fine, even preferabe. If i wanted my character to do everything for me I wouldn't play games. I would watch a movie or read a book. The point of games is having input, and having that input matter.
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DM: "You set off 5 traps taking a total of 100 damage. When your turn is over the goblins pelt you with javelins for another 50 damage. You are dead."
Player: "Wait no! My character's intelligence was 20. He would have come up with a better plan!"
DM: "Well, that's what you said you did. So you're dead."
In our D&D group the DM likes to tell us after every encounter how high above our CR it was and how badly we were supposed to die. It's our strategies and tactics that keep seeing us win every time.
Different kind of skill, but not even in D&D do your characters just play themselves.
I consider a mix of both character and player skill to be the best as it represents both your character that you are "role playing" as well as your own intelligence and skill. Although I had several DM's who insisted I roleplay my character's stats strictly.
As to the topic, I prefer a nice mix of player skill and gear dependence. I believe in reward systems that have meaning and if that includes gear, then gear should have meaning as well.