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Item Level - A Detriment or a Benefit?
Eronakis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,248
Going to keep this simple. Do you believe the Item Level system is a Detriment or a Benefit for a healthy mmorpg? Why or Why Not?
*My Answer*
I always try to view both sides of the coin persay when considering systems and mechanics of why the designer thought something would be effective or fun.
*The Pro*
- Item Level can be a benefit to help track players progression in order to get them flagged for specific content.
*The Cons*
- A lot of the times a high Item Level doesn't equate to being a good player.
- Players care more about your item level rather than you being a good player. Good players can not get invited to groups because they were stuck with a bad group. Increases toxicity of community.
- Content becomes more about a who has a high item level rather than about survivibility.
- It causes one dimensional gameplay and puts too much focus on gear dependency.
As of now, that's what I can think of, so my stance is it's more of a Detriment than a Benefit. What do you all think? Is there an alternative you'd prefer?
Item Level
- Is Item Level a Detriment or a Benefit?7 votes
- Item Level is a Detriment71.43%
- Item Level is a Benefit28.57%
Comments
It doesn't prove that you have more skill. It doesn't prove that you have more experience. It just proves you shop at MACY's. And in a game environment, it's like cheating without the negative association of the term.
Player outgears content... they trivialize it. Player outgears another player... they trivialize them.
If YOU, the PLAYER, were really ALL THAT, you wouldn't need such a crutch.
Remember, you didn't have all BiS when you first entered a dungeon and yet you did in fact conquer it, eventually. Now that you are all BiS, you can steamroll it while AFK on youtube. Are you better now or just lazier now? Lazier.
Gear is just a carrot on a stick to make your epeen grow. Reality is, it never makes you a better player... just a bigger dick.
The point of streamlining gear is to make it easier for players to figure out if that new item is better than what they already have. It also make it easier for developers so that they don't accidentally drop something really powerful early on. You also get a more obvious gear progression in your endgame.
The detriment is the attitude of random players.
I prefer streamlining of gear compared to the randomized gear that exists in diablo-clones. Its because I would rather spend as little time as possible figuring out if the gear is better and more time playing the game.
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."
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Items with level restrictions usually just add to players abilities that really don't need it. They're already at a good level with good abilities.
Yet giving an item with "super powers" to a low level player is "twinking", a method used in old MMORGs where a player with a high level avatar gives their low level alt all their out-leveled gear, making their low level alt more powerful.
I guess it comes down to what any specific MMO wants to happen. If it is a "one avatar can do everything", leveling gear is kind of pointless, as alts will not be as popular. If it is designed around differences (making alts more viable), item leveling makes sense.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I hate the gear treadmill.
But I like having bad players blocked from joining endgame content that they shouldn't be doing. Poorly equipped players can screw over the rest of the team.
Not sure how many times a group had trouble beating a dungeon, inspect gear, and find some selfish jerk wearing starter gear and even missing item slots. You can tell he was carried to max lvl. I'm not here to carry people. I also don't want to waste my time trying to overcome a dps boss mechanic, with a leech not pulling their weight. So they get kicked.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
There's some games that do increase your overall power based on item level but in that situation Item Level has become a stat in it's own right, just like +Strength would be. It's not the same kind of iLevel.
Use of iLevel so that others can see how good your gear is, is just a QoL feature to me.. you've been able to inspect other player's characters since the early days of MMOs. An iLevel just serves as a summary and saves time, nothing else. The function has always been there, it just took longer to look at every piece of gear when you inspected someone.
Gating content by using item level is another matter and something I dislike. But, that's an issue with gating, not with item level.
Personally, I believe the alternative is to not even have an ilvl or gearscore. Gear dependency is a massive crutch in todays mmorpgs. Gear should still be a major attribute to the gameplay but shouldn't necessarily negate a player to do content. What should matter is if you can survive as a group.
In Everquest, the tracking was your server reputation. I was known as a Wizard puller who could make great effective and efficient groups with little wiping. Some with lesser gear than others can still perform on par because they had great player awareness and comprehended their class well.
I honestly don't think there is a need to track item level, or have a gear score. I kind of like the idea of Achievements. I think in games like WoW and Gw2, Achievements are just things you do. If you really think about it, they're not really achievements. Some are for sure. I think if you incorporate Achievements in game, the list should be rather small and be challenging to get. Not just "I found this battle pet" etc.
I wish mmo's would start veering away from the lobby game centric systems such as these discussed.
The alternative is to have several different kinds of viable gear throughout instead of a nailed down progression. In the everquest of old, and the lower levels of a fair number of games, you have the ability to focus on different areas of your character through gear.
This struck me hard in Rift. I built a character with exceptional pre-progression gear and when it was required to use the progression gear through a specific stat that forced the use of such, my character became far weaker. That was one of several reasons I left the game.
Levels in general have always been treated terribly in games,a simple way to handcuff progression because devs were too lazy to implement anything with plausible realism.
I look at the analogy being similar to a young boy goes to buy a new hockey stick.He stares at the sticks but can't use the ones on the right,his level of hockey is not yet that high.That is NOT how it works with plausible realism,we choose whatever we want and can use whatever we want.
There is a way to do it properly via SKILL,your skill with that particular type of weapon,LEVELS is in a way similar,it is just a number but the wording is really bad and levels pertain to an overall number instead of a skill in one area.
Another analogy is say you are 75 years old,a vet,you have learned a lot over the years,Well the eway games do it is they are saying you are AUTOMATICALLY skilled with an Axe even if you have NEVER used one in your entire 75 years and that is just an improper way to design a game system.
To sum it up...
1 Individual skills rules over your entire level.
Quit being lazy,make items for AL levels and several choices,you are designing a game world,immersion,do it right or stop making mmorpg's.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design