torsdag 24 april 2008

Getting rid of the gear race

One of the biggest issues and controversies in WoW at the moment is the comparisons between gear.

Is the PvP gear 'welfare epics'? Should all new drops go to tanks/main healers in the first place in a raid? Is the arena rating limitations on S4 arena gear making the 'below 1700' not worth going arena? etc etc.

I think I have the embryo of an idea to solve this.

Let's first explain with arena gear.
With the coming season 4 lots of the gear demands a specific rating, and already there have been a discussion about it killing of the non hardcore arena teams.

First I thought - that’s easily solved. Why not get like 5 different versions of the shoulders which demands specific ratings? Like: none, 1500, 1700, 1900, 2100. This will make it possible for every arena player to slowly achieve better gear according to accomplishment.

And to not make it cost too much, get rid of earned arena points (not rating) and say that chest takes 4 weeks of playing a minimum 10 matches/week to be able to buy. And shoulders 8 weeks.

Here we have options of needing to work toward specific pieces. Like say that each week earns you a merit point which can be put in towards the 4 needed for chest. (A bit like a talent tree where the full tree make you able to wear that piece. Maybe should come with the option of respeccs.) Gettig 'attuned' to wear shoulders makes u able to upgrade to better rating shoulders without putting in the weeks again. A bit of a two way improvement avenue. Rating wise or slot wise.

New arena gear
What will be the result? Well. We would get arena players which all can work toward new gear in two ways. Either by improving their rating or to week by week work towards ability to wear a specific gear slot. More intervals makes it easier to actually get up on the ladder in comparison to now where its a huge difference if u can get the S4 set or not. This would make skill more important but keeping the gear advancement element of play.

But what about PvE then?
Yeah that’s another thing - or is it really? Why not get rid of the old drop system. Let everyone earn PvE rating by downing bosses and clearing instances.

This rating would then make you eligible to buy new gear, much like the arena system.

Wait a minute! Why not grind ZF then to get the best gear!?

Well thats easily solved too. Each boss is wort a number of points, say 60 points for Omor the Unscarred. Say that first time you get 60 points and then we have diminishing returns for him like cutting it to a third each time. 2nd=20, 3rd=7, 4th=3 etc. This to a max of like double the original value for him 120 points. Then you cant grind Omorr any more.

Then we can get phat loot by going in with a good group. Twink runs FTW!

Sure. But if we then add this system with a negative multiplier according to the PvE score of all the individuals in the group/raid? So doing Omorr the Unscarred with a group of BT raiders will diminish the PvE-points gained a lot. That will actually make it worth the time to do the instances with like levelled people.

Ok. I'll save up my points and buy the phattest axe in Azeroth already at lvl 60

Well, you wont. The system will work like the arena system above. The total points make you able to buy better gear. But they will not go away. They are a rating and not spendable points.

What do we get then for PvE?
Players get gear according to accomplishment. There is still a grinding component in there. And there is a motivator for taking on content made for your level.

This will make it meaningless to do Kara badge runs or easy heroics.

There is one drawback though. The thrill of seeing what that boss will drop today. Nothing is as thrilling like seeing that nifty helm drop and checking it out with a ctrl-click.

OK. Suggestion time is over. Please comment if you made it all through =)

2 kommentarer:

Gwaendar sa...

A few thoughts of mine here:

Is the PvP gear 'welfare epics'?

With the S4 rating requirements, the only welfare gear left in the game is badge loot.

and already there have been a discussion about it killing of the non hardcore arena teams.

That's a narrow, shortsighted and pessimistic interpretation IMO. The non-hardcore teams will be much better matched against similar gear+skill groups, in particular in the sub-1700 range, the mechanisms to limit point selling announced for 2.4.2 will see to that. The games for non-hardcore will be on a much more equal footing.

The hardcore will compete in the 2000+ bracket as today, no impact either. Where it could be harder is in the 1700-2000, more specifically above 1900. I think skilled teams will nonetheless rise above the fray, and enter the hardcore range stronger than today.

First I thought - that’s easily solved. Why not get like 5 different versions of the shoulders which demands specific ratings?
Nice idea but IMO this would increase point selling again, despite 2.4.2 mechanisms.

And to not make it cost too much, get rid of earned arena points (not rating) and say that chest takes 4 weeks of playing a minimum 10 matches/week to be able to buy. And shoulders 8 weeks.

I don't like that, it plays into the just show up and /dance for 10 games myth. Plus, with the merit points system, it actually starts to become a bit complicated.

Yeah that’s another thing - or is it really? Why not get rid of the old drop system. Let everyone earn PvE rating by downing bosses and clearing instances.

You'd remove the immediate reward of downing the boss. Which is going to hurt progression - down a boss, get some loot which will raise your chances against the next boss and so on.

Rather than introducing PvE ratings, I'd rather see a definite shift to an open token system. Weapons should also get tokenized. This would fully eliminate bad luck issues. Lower tier tokens could be redeemed for higher tiers provided a minimal rep threshold of the superior tier instance is met - a threshold which should be met very easily by downing bosses in said instances.

In your system, you'd massively hamper the ability of guilds to gear up new members or alts, making poaching of geared players a much bigger issue than it is now. It would wreak havoc in the raiding guild ecosystem.

DaddyGamer sa...

Hehe. Nice to get quick response. No confetti and trumpets here =)

About the same gear in below 1700 rating issue.
That is really a problem in my eyes. Even the ones playing mostly for fun will want to have some kind och gear to show. And for the below 1500 bracket there is only the gloves and offhand to get for arena points.

Also with many versions of a piece of gear it would be visually possible to make them look more awesome according to demand of rating - a bit like the BS weapons.

with the merit points system, it actually starts to become a bit complicated.

Well this might be true. The good thing with that system is that not all will have the exact same gear in each bracket. Some go for helm first, some for chest.

massively hamper the ability of guilds to gear up new members or alts, making poaching of geared players a much bigger issue than it is now.

Yes and no. Gearing up alts is very much twink runs. This boils down to: 'is it good with twink runs?'. If it you like the possibility to gear up subpar players its bad - else its good. But since the alt will get lots of raing for taking on new content they will get better quick. But not by standing behind 9 Kara raiders and getting all the loot.

In my mind the good thing is that instead of the T5 guild will take undergeared members through Kara quickly for best result. The best result will come for them all to take their alts and go through to get most rating for the bosses.

Easy mode is off.

Very good comments. I like your token system too. But thinks that it would be very easy to gear up underleveled players insanely fast with that. Bring 2 new 70s to a Kara run with a crew not needing gear - and they will probably be more or less fully Kara geared after that single run. If each boss drops one token.