Most players are idiots, so following their suggestions usually leads to problems.
In this specific instance, gear-based vertical progression that leads to best-in-slot items solves a short-term problem (goal setting and stroking e-peens) whilst creating a worse long term problem (segregating communities, hurting group content, lowering retention).
lol .. way to be an elitist and impose your preference on others.
May be they don't care about communities, hurting group content, and lowering retention. Heck, i play MMORPGs like single player games, why should i care any of those things you mentioned?
Sure, it may be a problem for you ... but bey, you don't represent all gamers, do you?
Designing good computer games is extremely difficult. It requires either one individual with extreme talent, or a group of individuals with talent working together really well.
Players usually aren't developers. Players are usually idiots by comparison. Players, for the most part, are unable to comprehend the subtleties of how one mechanic interacts with the rest of the game, or how changes might effect the long term stability of the game. This is why the majority of the suggestions that come out of the community are really stupid and should never be implemented.
Is that elitist? Yeh, it is, but the goal is to have the best games ever so I want the elite designing them.
As to why you should care? So that you can play better games. In this specific instance (vertical gear progression), the benefits you get as a player (artificial progression / stimulating your reward centres) can easily be achieved by other means that do not cause the problems that vertical progression causes.
So, the devs would be taking nothing away from you, the solo player, but would be improving things for actual MMO players (it would also improve things even for a solo player). If things improve for both solo and MMO players, the companies earn more money. Some of that will be lost in the pockets of the execs, but a lot of it will be reinvested into the games we already enjoy (making them better) or into new games (giving us more choices / options). If MMO devs start making more money in general, it will attract more devs and investors resulting in an even larger amount of choice for us.
If you are happy for the games market to stagnate, thats fine, you can remain happy with what we've got and never ask for improvements. But, I am assuming that you get excited by improvements in the market, be they gameplay, graphics, social or whatever. I am assuming that even though you are having fun now, you would prefer it if games could offer you even more fun.
So, even if the issues don't affect you directly, they do affect you indirectly. Improving genres improves the games market as a whole.
Best in slot is only useful for single objective content. Imagine a game where it takes you longer to kill mobs but the strategic damage yields better loot. Rather than current, spam it, zerg it, content locust wins every time standard.
Character enhancement through gear is just a staple of RPGs and has been that way since the first +1 item dropped in a tabletop D&D game. And in real life long before that since the history of warfare in large part revolves about which equipment is best for the job.
Progression initially existed to expand content. Gear is supposed to be a vehicle, not a destination. If you don't understand that, then you probably have never even participated in a role playing session before.
Also, you're agreeing with me here whether you realize it or not. I said gear should be about utility, which is picking the equipment that will allow you to accomplish your task. That doesn't mean you should require better versions of your gear to advance, or that you should be forced to do repetitive content to acquire it.
Most MMORPG's these days have no business even calling themselves an RPG. They're action fantasy themeparks, where content is indifferent to class.
Your ideas are just odd. Been playing rpgs since 1974.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Character enhancement through gear is just a staple of RPGs and has been that way since the first +1 item dropped in a tabletop D&D game. And in real life long before that since the history of warfare in large part revolves about which equipment is best for the job.
Progression initially existed to expand content. Gear is supposed to be a vehicle, not a destination. If you don't understand that, then you probably have never even participated in a role playing session before.
Also, you're agreeing with me here whether you realize it or not. I said gear should be about utility, which is picking the equipment that will allow you to accomplish your task. That doesn't mean you should require better versions of your gear to advance, or that you should be forced to do repetitive content to acquire it.
Most MMORPG's these days have no business even calling themselves an RPG. They're action fantasy themeparks, where content is indifferent to class.
Gear was always the destination in MMORPGs. What are you? 12? EverQuest, which was the first MMORPG that really spawned the Raid Progression "norm" we're all accustomed to, followed this model. Every other serious PvE MMORPG pretty much copied this model from them - including WoW. The whole point was to get better and better gear to grow your character power. By the time WoW hit the market, the "norm" had already been set by games like EverQuest and, to a lesser extent, Dark Age of Camelot. The games that followed just kept this system, while putting their own faces on it.
The only reason why people progressed through the content was because you had to, otherwise you would be missing Spells and you wouldn't get any decent gear. The gear was made to drop from the progression content for a number of reasons, including:
1. Developers could throttle player progression this way (via content/expansion release cycles, content tuning, etc.) 2. Without a suitable "reward" from doing difficult content, no one would do it. We see this whenever a new expansion is released in an MMORPG. Previous content gets abandoned pretty quickly (if not instantly, as in games like WoW - apart from Transmog/Achievement Runs)
The content in MMORPGs are nothing more than a way to stifle character progression, because the business model of MMORPGs is based on getting players to spend as much time in the game as possible. Everyone knew this. "Time sink" became a pretty common way to describe time-wasting, unrewarding content back in the EQ days... Without it, you'd basically be end-game upon character creation (barring levels). This is the case with GW2, and a lot of people complain about the vertical gear progression in that game (basically, itemization is pretty much ignorable due to the way it's all designed).
This is why Pay to Win is such a big deal... If you give people an easy way to skip the time sink of progression, then many will - they will simply whip out their wallets and buy as much as they can. This is pretty evident in grind-heavy games like Lineage II, for example (which is a bit of an extreme case, due to its time requirements for end-game leveling, gearing). I know I just bought gold in GW2 to get set up with gear at level 80. I'm pretty sure thousands of others do the same...
MMORPGs are a gearing treadmill...
1. Create Character 2. Level Up While Getting Basic Gear, needed for dungeons 3. Do Dungeons for Better Gear, needed for raids 4. Do Raids for better gear, needed for harder (heroic, whatever) raids 5. Do harder raids for even better gear - Expansions happen 6. Go to Step 2
The content is the means to the end, not the other way around (what people like you keep trying to convince yourselves). The goal in MMORPGs is power. Power is achieved via levels and gear. The content is simply a means of achieving that - the harder the content, the better the reward. This allows players to distinguish themselves from people below them (in worse guilds, less skilled, been playing significantly less, etc.).
They have ALWAYS been this way.
The reason why F2P Cash Shop games have gained so much popularity despite the game-breaking consequences of that business model is because players are going to take shortcuts when given them, even while they complain about richer players taking more shortcuts gaining an advantage over them.
Also, the stuff about D&D Table Top comparisons is hogwash, and pretty much worthless.
MMORPGs were never played like that on a wide scale. Most of humanity finds sitting at a desk/table pretending to be a powerful wizard extremely awkward if not borderline psychotic...
If you're playing an MMORPG, you're playing a role whether you're RP'ing or not. You created a Wizard and you're playing it. Literally, that's role playing... Just not literally the awkward kind you're talking about.
"Role Playing" has also been pushed out with the increasing use of Voice Communication in video games. It's a lot less awkward for a guy to RP his Mangina Dark Elf Mage with text only, then when the guild tells him to log into Ventrillo for the raid of Mythic Dungeon runs.
RPing in MMORPGs also became known for perverted behaviors, like characters trying to cyber with others simply because they're female, or whatever, and players sitting in PoK /emote'ing sex for all to see.
Designing good computer games is extremely difficult. It requires either one individual with extreme talent, or a group of individuals with talent working together really well.
...
blah blah blah .. basically boils down to your preference is better than anyone else's.
You know that there is no such thing as a "good" computer game for everyone, right?
For example, you may like a "community" but i don't need devs to waste time on the community aspects of games because that is not why i play games.
Gear based progression is devised to make players feel strong just for investing their time and/or money.
IMO, gear should be about aesthetics and utility. Games that entertain players by artificially inflating their egos are usually devoid of content and stuffed full of timesinks. Oh wait, that's about 99.9% of the MMOs out there, isn't it...
That worked oh so well for GW2 base huh?
It is one of the top MMOs still you know...
But frankly, that is besides the point here.
The reason it's one of the top mmos is because they backpedaled on that greatly with their expansions. They added progression and better gear to both expansions.
Comments
Players usually aren't developers. Players are usually idiots by comparison. Players, for the most part, are unable to comprehend the subtleties of how one mechanic interacts with the rest of the game, or how changes might effect the long term stability of the game. This is why the majority of the suggestions that come out of the community are really stupid and should never be implemented.
Is that elitist? Yeh, it is, but the goal is to have the best games ever so I want the elite designing them.
As to why you should care? So that you can play better games. In this specific instance (vertical gear progression), the benefits you get as a player (artificial progression / stimulating your reward centres) can easily be achieved by other means that do not cause the problems that vertical progression causes.
So, the devs would be taking nothing away from you, the solo player, but would be improving things for actual MMO players (it would also improve things even for a solo player). If things improve for both solo and MMO players, the companies earn more money. Some of that will be lost in the pockets of the execs, but a lot of it will be reinvested into the games we already enjoy (making them better) or into new games (giving us more choices / options). If MMO devs start making more money in general, it will attract more devs and investors resulting in an even larger amount of choice for us.
If you are happy for the games market to stagnate, thats fine, you can remain happy with what we've got and never ask for improvements. But, I am assuming that you get excited by improvements in the market, be they gameplay, graphics, social or whatever. I am assuming that even though you are having fun now, you would prefer it if games could offer you even more fun.
So, even if the issues don't affect you directly, they do affect you indirectly. Improving genres improves the games market as a whole.
Your ideas are just odd. Been playing rpgs since 1974.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Gear was always the destination in MMORPGs. What are you? 12? EverQuest, which was the first MMORPG that really spawned the Raid Progression "norm" we're all accustomed to, followed this model. Every other serious PvE MMORPG pretty much copied this model from them - including WoW. The whole point was to get better and better gear to grow your character power. By the time WoW hit the market, the "norm" had already been set by games like EverQuest and, to a lesser extent, Dark Age of Camelot. The games that followed just kept this system, while putting their own faces on it.
The only reason why people progressed through the content was because you had to, otherwise you would be missing Spells and you wouldn't get any decent gear. The gear was made to drop from the progression content for a number of reasons, including:
1. Developers could throttle player progression this way (via content/expansion release cycles, content tuning, etc.)
2. Without a suitable "reward" from doing difficult content, no one would do it. We see this whenever a new expansion is released in an MMORPG. Previous content gets abandoned pretty quickly (if not instantly, as in games like WoW - apart from Transmog/Achievement Runs)
The content in MMORPGs are nothing more than a way to stifle character progression, because the business model of MMORPGs is based on getting players to spend as much time in the game as possible. Everyone knew this. "Time sink" became a pretty common way to describe time-wasting, unrewarding content back in the EQ days... Without it, you'd basically be end-game upon character creation (barring levels). This is the case with GW2, and a lot of people complain about the vertical gear progression in that game (basically, itemization is pretty much ignorable due to the way it's all designed).
This is why Pay to Win is such a big deal... If you give people an easy way to skip the time sink of progression, then many will - they will simply whip out their wallets and buy as much as they can. This is pretty evident in grind-heavy games like Lineage II, for example (which is a bit of an extreme case, due to its time requirements for end-game leveling, gearing). I know I just bought gold in GW2 to get set up with gear at level 80. I'm pretty sure thousands of others do the same...
MMORPGs are a gearing treadmill...
1. Create Character
2. Level Up While Getting Basic Gear, needed for dungeons
3. Do Dungeons for Better Gear, needed for raids
4. Do Raids for better gear, needed for harder (heroic, whatever) raids
5. Do harder raids for even better gear - Expansions happen
6. Go to Step 2
The content is the means to the end, not the other way around (what people like you keep trying to convince yourselves). The goal in MMORPGs is power. Power is achieved via levels and gear. The content is simply a means of achieving that - the harder the content, the better the reward. This allows players to distinguish themselves from people below them (in worse guilds, less skilled, been playing significantly less, etc.).
They have ALWAYS been this way.
The reason why F2P Cash Shop games have gained so much popularity despite the game-breaking consequences of that business model is because players are going to take shortcuts when given them, even while they complain about richer players taking more shortcuts gaining an advantage over them.
MMORPGs were never played like that on a wide scale. Most of humanity finds sitting at a desk/table pretending to be a powerful wizard extremely awkward if not borderline psychotic...
If you're playing an MMORPG, you're playing a role whether you're RP'ing or not. You created a Wizard and you're playing it. Literally, that's role playing... Just not literally the awkward kind you're talking about.
"Role Playing" has also been pushed out with the increasing use of Voice Communication in video games. It's a lot less awkward for a guy to RP his Mangina Dark Elf Mage with text only, then when the guild tells him to log into Ventrillo for the raid of Mythic Dungeon runs.
RPing in MMORPGs also became known for perverted behaviors, like characters trying to cyber with others simply because they're female, or whatever, and players sitting in PoK /emote'ing sex for all to see.
You know that there is no such thing as a "good" computer game for everyone, right?
For example, you may like a "community" but i don't need devs to waste time on the community aspects of games because that is not why i play games.