Curtailing the Gear Race

@Gunga Din

Yeah your right at least 3D modeling has a semi productive outcome... LOL

Here is a different perspective... I am more of a power gamer. I have definitely been molded by the current games in the genre.

In WoW for example, players could walk between areas instead of using flying mounts or fast traveling methods this would make the game take a very very long time to complete but most if not all use their mounts and fast travel to get around. In WoW you can also explore the game and it's massive amounts of content. (By the way I am not endorsing this approach in SotA even though I used the features)

I think I am probably part of the majority of the market - the players that want to advance their characters quickly to get to the more challenging content. And then get to the really intricate parts of the game like resource node management in open pvp zones. Difficult team work oriented "dungeon" or "instance" content where you need specific skill sets and strategy to progress in content.

This is one of the things World of Warcraft did in "vanilla" that no game has done since - that is an extremely hard, engaging end game - that took months to try to just get past some of the easiest end game tier 1 content.

I like many others have a real ingrained need to be challenged, to get the best skill distributions to be as strong as you possibly can be in your desired role in game, I want to die a lot and I want to be punished for it (Eve rings a bell here.. the rush you get when you are in a situation you could be killed in is immense).

I understand you are one type of player class and many people on here that played Ultima are, and I respect that playstyle and I want you to be able to have tons of fun in this game.

I would also like the Ultima players to understand there is another group of players that gets a large amount of their fun from progression and socialization (MMOers). I really need a game where if I want to have the "perfect avatar" I would need to play 2-3 years to earn that (all skills, max level, best in slot gear stored away safely).

Just treat other gaming groups even PK's with the same respect you desire. They just want to have fun and play the game the way they want.

(I also do not endorse PK's but I do understand there is a human behind the avatar that is having an awesome time when they kill me, sometimes that makes me a little less upset with the situation.)

 

You could tale a broad and shallow approach instead of a narrow and deep approach. RG has mentioned a desire to level out stats where someone may be, at best, 10 times as powerful as a newbie instead of 100 times. Apply this to weapons and armor as well.

This de-emphasizes stats as a measure of power. Stat could be used to open new levels of a skill. Instead of skills making you better at a task, skills can give you more abilities. Weapons can follow a similar path, where they don't deal more damage, rather they deal a greater variety of damage.

For example, Foe has resistances of A, B and C, total resistance divided into thirds. Friend has a weapon with attributes B, D and E. Damage is split 3 ways and Friend does 66% of total damage against Foe. The obvious tradeoff would be a narrower weapon - B only - with the risk being that you will do no damage against a B only defense. No uber-weapons, but weapons tailored to particular foes. Couple this with some a way to evaluate a foe's defenses and attacks.

 

i read a little of the OP post and it sounds like your points are more refering to the multitude Themepark MMOs on the market

I liked the concept that earlier UO had IE random enchantments based on materials used and skills thus you could forge 100 swords and get 100 of the same type of sword but those 100 swords each have benifits for different things.

Armor did get a little silly towards ML and onwards where you could make a 100 LRC all 70 resist med 3/6 fc\fcr suit making you almost godly depending on your build and rings ect

 

<cite>For example, Foe has resistances of A, B and C, total resistance divided into thirds. Friend has a weapon with attributes B, D and E.</cite>

I do like foes with D attributes and higher...wait, what are we talking about? *blush.*

 

Addressing OP's idea of using GW2's "down leveling" would only work if there was a Reason behind doing it. What I mean is using one of RG's golden rules, asking "why does this make sense in the world?" Adding downleveling mechanics for balance is one way to do it, but if you can't explain why you are making avatars weaker when they go to beginner areas, it is not a good fit for this particular game.

Mugly_Wumple said it right, there just needs to be a smaller gap between low and high level players. Due to the card-based combat system, more difficult monsters might need more tactical use of special moves unlocked later in the skill progression than raw damage and power.

If the topic has shifted more to end game content than purely gear, I do not think we have Too much to worry about since there will be 5 installments of the game, guaranteeing loads of new story and content to devour every year for 5 full years. After 5 years we'll be looking at what to do next, and everyone should have a much clearer view of what that should be.

The question I have is, will we have skill cap increases with each new chapter? After year 1, we will all be at 100 skill or what have you, so how should you progress through the subsequent releases?

 

GW2 was just an example of what that game did. Not an idea for this game.

 

I've seen end game content with little to no power creep / power grind handled in a few ways.

GW1 has a level cap of 20. Experienced players can get to level 20 in a few hours, and get gear close to the best in the game in a few more hours. The level cap was also never increased with expansions, and the gear either didn't get better, or only got a little better. Progression was almost purely cosmetic, and on top of that the whole game past the first few hours was tuned for max level players in very good gear.
BTW, each GW1 "expansion" was actually a full blown, independent campaign, meant to be perfectly playable starting with a first level character. Despite that, an existing maxed character starting a new campaign would be facing underpowered opponents for just a fairly small amount of time, quickly reaching a point where the content was tuned for max level.

The original idea with GW2 was to also have little to no power progression at the end game; for the best, or close to the best, gear to be obtainable fairly easily; and for further upgrades to be mostly cosmetic. The devs more or less broke that promise by introducing a new gear tier, though (which actually made me stop playing GW2 for a while).

TSW does have one heck of a gear grind, but on the character front it has an interesting model. If you just want to play one role, you just need to max out a few skill lines and get a few dozen abilities; that character will be very narrow, but in his chosen field he will be as powerful as a character that has maxed over a dozen skill lines and earned a few hundred abilities. While characters can max out every skill line and earn every single ability in the game, a character can only be using about half a dozen skill lines and less than two dozen abilities at a time, so having more than that just adds flexibility, not power.

Those more or less represent my preferences, BTW; progression being mostly about cosmetic options and added flexibility, with little to no actual power progression.

 

gw2 was probably the most disappointing game I ever played. Not because it was bad, but because it was loaded with so many great ideas and when they ran out of time, they just threw in a bit of everything half baked instead of intelligently reducing scope and adding it in later when it was actually done.

If they needed to ship on time, they should have cut half the races or capped the level at 30 or anything but what they did.

But I completely agree with the desire to cap skills and gear in hours to days and just have everything after that be cosmetic.