aye titles are great, and some of the better MMO's take advantage of them. in my opinion however the problem you are combating is not that epic creatures drop epic equipment, its that a player's "uberness" is a direct relationship with time played and occasionally the strength of their guild.

"to the victors go the spoils."

this is the golden rule in RPG's and largely ever game or competitive atmosphere.


the key is not to "normalize" all equipment so that everyone can be equal regardless of investment and accomplishment. this is counter to every expectation a hardcore player will have.(and it should be)

the key is to not normalize the skill required to skillfully play your toon or character so that two equally equipped players can still be very unequal in effectiveness if ones skill exceeds greatly the others.


Here is a post i made about this issue.(kind of long)

in my opinion you are trying to address a symptom of a much larger issue.

Well, epic loot just HAVE to drop from epic enemy

It's just the epic enemy doesn't have to be NPC, it can be a player. Let's say some player forged a legendary weapon, and he got killed by some guy and he looted it.

Teired content.

As you level up in a MMORPG, you go from one area to the next. You progress by gaining XP or levels.

This means that you regularly get a new dose of neat looking content, instead of spending forever in the same old content. In fact, your reward from spending time in the old content goes down -- you are "forced" to move to continue "progressing", and at the same time your "progression" in character power allows you to move to new content.

If a new character could run over to a L 50 dungeon at the start of the game, they wouldn't get to spend time in the L 5, L 10, L 15, L 20, L 25, L 30, L 35, L 40 and L 45 dungeons. All that enjoyable content would be skipped. So a L 1 character is set up so that they can't survive in the L 50 dungeon.

So now your characters have reached the top level.

Is there anything new to "progress" towards?

Some games (EQ) have AA. But the problem with AA is that you can continue grinding the same content indefinately without ever progressing. There is very little progression in AA.

Many games have a raid progression. By defeating creatures, you get better items -- which allow you defeat even harder creatures. Each teir requires mastering the previous teir -- it is a form of progression very much like leveling, but instead of gaining levels, you gain better stats.

In DAOC, those 8 ToA geared people slaughering 40 normals? Very much like 8 L 50 player slaughtering 40 L 30 players.

The issue comes when the higher teir players are competing with lower teir players -- be it for content-effort from developers, in a PvP situation, or over areas to XP in. This is viewed as "unfair" by the lower-teir players.

In the level progression, the high level farmer monopolizing a low level spawn. The high level player griefing low level players in PvP. Or a top-heavy game in which a L 30 player gets no new content from expansions.

The same happens with raid-gearing.

On one hand, you want PvP to be a relatively flat playing ground.

On the other, a progression system requires that each teir of gear be exponentially more powerful than the last, or people will be able to simply skip teirs.

Sucks, don't it?

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Original post by makeshiftwings It's still ultimately meaningless. Basically, in WoW, you grind to get the armor to get the meaningless titles, instead of just grinding to get the meaningless titles.

if you're going to put it this way... what 'game' is meaningful?

2nd'ing solinear.

Since the 2 main elements of any MMORPG are combat&economy (combat usually being more important) those should have the richest gameplay. Try to make it possible for players to have varied abilities, strategies, and equipment. (easier said than done). Make a player choose between the armor that resists fire and the one that adds dex, between the heavy axe that agile enemies can dodge or the quicker and more accurate sword. And make these choices matter more than "Dmg per Second" !




I think it'd be better if stats and equips didn't change so much as one progressed through the game so much as techniques: a brawler starts out with a few punches and is eventually throwing rolling suplexes. make it possible for a level 10 to beat a level 30 if he has a perfect brawler game. i might actually play that MMORPG.

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Original post by Takaloy Quote: Original post by makeshiftwings It's still ultimately meaningless. Basically, in WoW, you grind to get the armor to get the meaningless titles, instead of just grinding to get the meaningless titles. if you're going to put it this way... what 'game' is meaningful?

Take it a step further... what is meaningful?

Anyway, it always bothered me that, for example, Emerald Weapon in FFVII and Ozma in FFIX gave you equipment that made you a better fighter. By the time I can beat them, I don't need to be a better fighter (well, maybe to beat Ruby Weapon, but most strategies for that don't even include Master Materia, even assume you don't have it).

In MMORPGs, this equipment is as good as a title, at least to other PCs. They notice that you've completed quest X for equipment Y. The problem is that, at that point, all you can do is sit back and admire your 1337-ness and allow others to do the same. The only difference is that titles fit with some people's notion of "RPG" a bit better.

Solution? No solution, or not really. I think a definitive "end" would be nice. Maybe something like working to the ultimate loss of your character. In Dragon Lance, the gods didn't allow you to be over level 20. At that point, it was time to start a new character. Maybe offer different methods of transcendence. Completing certain quests, reaching certain levels, getting to a certain location, creating a guild of a certain size, etc. Then allow people to see how many characters you've managed to bring to the point of transcendence and by what means (rationalize it as "reading their aura" or some such magical/technological nonsense). This provides a reason to progress (another star by your name), and a reason to start over (getting the star removes access to that character).

I also always wanted there to be a quest where one of your weapons becomes a legendary "quest" weapon. I don't think I've ever seen this, has anyone ever done this? An event-quest where, if I complete it, people can start to quest for the "Spear of Way Walker".

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Original post by Takaloy Quote: Original post by makeshiftwings It's still ultimately meaningless. Basically, in WoW, you grind to get the armor to get the meaningless titles, instead of just grinding to get the meaningless titles. if you're going to put it this way... what 'game' is meaningful?

None of them are really, which is somewhat my point. The original post hypothesizes that if you tell the player that they don't "have" to play your game a lot, and try to emphasize to them that the rewards they get are meaningless, that somehow they will enjoy your game more. The original poster, like many people, feels they "have" to play WoW (or whichever MMORPG he's currently stuck on) for 60 hours a week, and that if he designed an MMORPG that he didn't "have" to play, he would "want" to play it more. My point is that you ALREADY don't "have" to play WoW for that long, or play it at all. A secondary point is that from a marketing standpoint, it's much better to make a game that people feel they "have" to play than one that they merely "want" to play.

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Original post by Evil_Greven Quote: Original post by superpig Well, it's a positive feedback system. If you killed an epic enemy, you must be pretty hardcore. The gain of the epic loot makes you more hardcore, so you kill more epic enemies, and so on. It destabilises the game in your favour, which is in theory desirable in a game with terminating conditions (i.e. so that you win). I'm sorry, I should have been more clear in referring this to a game where you could play with (or against) other players. However, the destabilization is the main issue I'm concerned with, not the grind (which does contribute to it, as a stumbling block to *other* players).

Well, destabilization is necessary in any game that is supposed to terminate, regardless of whether it's multiplayer, otherwise you don't have a clear winner. That's not to say that it shouldn't be possible for the balance of power to swing rapidly from one player's favour to anothers, but there does need to be a movement away from the baseline over time and negative feedback works contrary to that. Unless, of course, your game doesn't have a terminating condition, doesn't have a way to 'win.' Then you're facing the incompatible problems of trying to allow players to move themselves away from the baseline (individual achievement) without actually unbalancing the game as a whole...

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Quote: Original post by superpig I'd like to see names used as achievement awards. So I have my character "Aziraphael," and with him I complete the quest to venture deep into the dungeons of Danthael and kill the evil wizard Mirithon. NPCs now sometimes greet me as "Aziraphael, slayer of Mirithon" or "Aziraphael, hammer of Danthael" and generally act more respectfully towards me. Very occasionally, like when arriving at the King's court, all my titles and reputation get read out. That's an excellent idea, and one that I've seen put to some use. Check out City of Heroes and City of Villains, which both feature these. Civilians will talk about what you've done (usually just recent stuff) and you have titles to pick from (as well as badges).

As an afterthought: A more tangible reward could be provided here. Say Aziraphael goes into a tavern to get a drink and regain a few HP; aside from the cheering I get from the occupants of "Hail Aziraphael, Slayer or Mirithon!", when I go to talk to the barman he gives me a drink on the house or a reduced rate for a room. The drink is the same drink I could have bought, still gives me the same benefits, but now as a reward for being bad-ass I'm getting it for free. (Obviously this doesn't work all the time, and it's possible that spending all my time drinking free beer would cause my reputation to normalise again). It exchanges one big reward - some uber-powerful item - for lots of little ones across the board.

The nice side-effect is that as the game goes on and the player gets more involved in the story and their character, and they complete more quests and progress, money becomes less of a factor. It has always seemed slightly harsh that a town will ask me to go and slay the demon that oppresses them but will still charge me for the sword I need to do so. Haven't these people heard of paying one's expenses? Costs fall before the mighty and so I can concentrate on progressing with the story instead of having to stop and collect rat arseholes to earn the 3 gold pieces I need to afford that demon-slaying sword.

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Original post by NotAYakk On the other, a progression system requires that each teir of gear be exponentially more powerful than the last, or people will be able to simply skip teirs. Sucks, don't it?

What if we just get rid of tiers altogether? Instead of saying "You cant go into this dungeon until your X level" you say "You can go do anything you want whenever you want". This gets rid of several problems and content skipping is at the discretion of the player, he doesn’t have to play anything he doesn’t want to. It also solves the problem of, my friend is 30 lvls higher than me . . we cant play together.

So what makes one character more unique than another? Well if you put in one-time instances, instances where the final boss can only be destroyed once, then having the title of "Sutekh the Slayer of Darkfang" would actually mean something. If we create content that is fun and provides a challenge, instead of content the player MUST play to advance, i think we would have a diffrent type of MMO on our hands.

As you advance, instead of becoming more powerful than the previous 'level' you simply gain abilities that make you more versatile in combat. Now instead of having a few attacks/abilities at your disposal, you have many abilities that you can use as you wish to form your own tactics?

I have always hated the idea of levels, they seem pointless and do nothing but separate the community. A system where as you advance, instead of making you more powerful you are made more versatile. Instead of getting new gear to make yourself leagues better than the next guy, make gear that changes how you look ( unique one time or very limited-time type of gear would be great) and provides you with a slight advantage over someone in some form.

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Original post by Sutekh What if we just get rid of tiers altogether? Instead of saying "You cant go into this dungeon until your X level" you say "You can go do anything you want whenever you want". This gets rid of several problems and content skipping is at the discretion of the player, he doesn’t have to play anything he doesn’t want to. It also solves the problem of, my friend is 30 lvls higher than me . . we cant play together. So what makes one character more unique than another? Well if you put in one-time instances, instances where the final boss can only be destroyed once, then having the title of "Sutekh the Slayer of Darkfang" would actually mean something. If we create content that is fun and provides a challenge, instead of content the player MUST play to advance, i think we would have a diffrent type of MMO on our hands. As you advance, instead of becoming more powerful than the previous 'level' you simply gain abilities that make you more versatile in combat. Now instead of having a few attacks/abilities at your disposal, you have many abilities that you can use as you wish to form your own tactics? I have always hated the idea of levels, they seem pointless and do nothing but separate the community. A system where as you advance, instead of making you more powerful you are made more versatile. Instead of getting new gear to make yourself leagues better than the next guy, make gear that changes how you look ( unique one time or very limited-time type of gear would be great) and provides you with a slight advantage over someone in some form.

“When you can measure what you
are speaking about, and express it in
numbers, you know something about
it; but when you cannot measure it,
when you cannot express it in
numbers, your knowledge is of a
meagre and unsatisfactory kind.”
Lord Kelvin, Popular Lectures and Addresses,
1889