There have been a few posts in various places over the past couple weeks that have brought up the role of “equipment” in MMOs. The actual main topics of discussion were quite diverse: in one case, it was a discussion of why players get so few choices in how their character’s look in some games (at mmorpg.com, link), in another, a back-and-forth related to microtransactions (rlmmo.com Metaverse forums, link).
Obviously, there have been multiple times the MMO blogosphere has touched on the topic in various ways as well… the recent EQ2 update being just the latest impetus. (sorry, a little lazy on the links this morning… post em if you got em…)
What I continue to wonder, and that I bring up as a result of the above commentary, is whether a game with equipment (ie CoH doesn’t really count) that did not scale “heroically” in power would be accepted, particularly one in a fantasy setting.
Now, I’ve never been all that enamored of the typical implementation of equipment in MMOs, anyway. I just find it slightly jarring that a newbie sword does 1-10 points, while a blade of apparently similar size and weight but tagged as “high level” does 10000-11000 points instead. I know it’s “magic” and all that… but you could make the same argument related to being able to walk through walls due to poor collision checking, and people would get all up in arms about _that_…
My own idea is to have equipment which empowered and enhanced the use of a character’s abilities, but did not grant anything of it’s own. A simple example might be a sword which enabled the character to use certain special types of attack if known, and perhaps even gave bonus damage on a subset of them, but could be used as a basic weapon by anyone, specially skilled or no. In short, the character’s skill is the primary determinant of success… equipment just defines what specific techniques they can use of the ones they know.
Does that fly too heavily in the face of the current model of choice, where equipment literally _becomes_ the primary advancement mechanism at some point? I go back and forth on that question when I read forums and the like… some people seem likely to be open to the idea, others have so much pride invested in their character’s equipment it seems unlikely they would embrace games using an alternative system that didn’t offer precisely the same opportunity/goal.
Anyone have additional insight?
Voyages in Eternity 
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September 26, 2007 at 9:44 am
kanthalos
I certainly agree. Gear currently has far too much importance on the strength and power of your character. While I think this needs to change, I also understand that this means there needs to be another driving force to replace this. While leveling and stat increases with each ding are important, it would be hard to keep people interested if this was the only way to enhance your character beyond level 1 with your “rotten wooden sword” and “cracked leather tunic.” While I’m not sure what kind of progression is needed, if gear it reduced in importance like this, something would surely need to take its place.
September 26, 2007 at 11:47 am
Aaron
On the one hand, I like loot-acquisition gameplay. On the other hand, I hate systems that make characters infinitely more powerful at the endgame than in the beginning. I’d like to find ways to create an elaborate equipment system that’s not focused on just increasing power.
Hellgate: London is advertising gear for the evoker (mage) class that improves the damage on their spells.
I’m really interested in a system where skills can be linked to items, but in the past (Diablo 2) that meant improving a skill the player already has or enabling a skill that the player could have chosen if he hadn’t put his skillpoints elsewhere. I’d like to take it further. I’d like players to be able to acquire skills which are only available through certain items… and those items must be acquired through chance, rather than sought out (see yesterday’s blog).
As it happens, I already had a blog started about equipment and it tries to address Kanthalos’ concern. I’ll get it up sometime today, but I’m a little scatter-brained right now.
September 26, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Talyn
Gear/loot acquisition probably began in the days of D&D because there was no crafting, you got your gear from merchants initially then eventually from your adventures.
The majority of MMO’s to date are gear-centric, WoW arguably the worst offender. As noted above, you can explain away gear giving stat/damage bonuses in the myriad fantasy MMO’s simply by shrugging it off with a “pfft… it’s magic, noob!” Take it out of fantasy though to… pretty much any genre, and how do you explain “these gloves give you +15 to mining?” I’ll take Spellborn’s approach any day, your gear is separate from your stats. You can wear nearly anything you want and look any way you want, which will certainly appeal to the female gamers. I suspect from all the complaints about gear in other games, however, that the females aren’t the only ones who want to look nice or unique.
Gear is one of the reasons I have a very difficult time considering MMO “PvP” to actually be what it stands for: Player vs. Player. It isn’t. At all. It’s Gear vs. Gear. Whomever has the best gear wins. Period. Nothing to do with player skill or the lack thereof.
September 27, 2007 at 5:54 am
damianov
@Kanthalos: that’s my general feeling, too… there needs to be some element of advancement, no matter how slow and random it may be, too provide an incentive. At least, to meet the needs of the existing player base…
@Aaron: I like the acquisition of equipment and wealth, too. In my case, I’m looking at equipment as being more of a “key”, unlocking or allowing the use of an ability if the character has it, but not granting it if they don’t.
Here’s an example of what I’m proposing: say a specific blade has a “weapon binding” ability, that can prevent an opponent from attacking for a short time, or a “honed edge” ability that can cause additional bleeding.
Normal blades of the same type wouldn’t allow anyone to use the related attack techniques, whether they knew them or not. Characters that didn’t have those attack techniques could use this blade normally, but wouldn’t gain any added benefit from the blade’s special ability. Only characters with both the blade and the underlying knowledge of related techniques could use the weapon to it’s full advantage.
In short, most power is actually vested in the character itself… better equipment can just “unlock” more and grander aspects of that power.
@Talyn: Even in D+D, tho, gear was far less of a factor than it has become. You _might_ get a long sword at some point that was +5 and triple damage, so instead of doing 1-8 (1d8), it did 8-29 (3d8+5). That’d be artifact level gear in AD+D, and the max damage was less than 4 times as much as the blade you’d have had at level 1.
I daresay we all want our avatars to look nice and/or unique… it’s far from being confined to single gender.
Spellborn is another game I’ve got to try sometime… sigh. The list just keeps growing…
I think there is a modicum of real skill that comes into PvP, but the handicap provided by level and gear can become overpowering quite quickly under current designs. I, too, would like to move somewhat further toward weighting player skill more heavily, and de-emphasizing the impact of acquired gear and XP somewhat.
September 27, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Talyn
Would you feel your “weapon binding” concept would add yet more potential “disenchant trash” to the loot tables though? If someone reads the tooltip and understands that they only get the weapon’s full benefit if they have X ability, which probably means they need to be Y class. I don’t know about you but I hate when class loot drops and there’s no one of that class in the group. Kinda like when Shaman gear started dropping for Alliance groups before TBC launched…
September 28, 2007 at 11:40 am
damianov
Sorry about the delay… it’s been a long week.
Not sure I understand the questions. At least part (most?) of that is my fault… I should have used better terminology or a different example.
By “weapon binding”, I mean the swordplay/fencing techniques where you use your own weapon to “bind” the opponents weapon, essentially grappling it to prevent it’s use for a period of time, often leading to a disarming or weapon-breaking move… not the typical MMO definition of “bind” synonymous with spirit-binding/bind-on-equip (which I personally dislike, tho it has definite reasons for existing, obviously).
Also, I don’t see such an equipment system as being a good fit for a system that was heavily reliant upon classes… the underlying development system would need to be far more flexible for the concept to really be workable, IMO (in other words, more of a skill-based system).
As for loot tables, my preferred loot system would actually be mostly “trash” drops… stackables and “well-used” equipment, mainly, at least when “looting bodies”. If you wanted the “good stuff”, you need to 1) fight someone using it against you, or 2) penetrate the locked, trapped, and well-guarded vault that it’s usually stored in.
September 30, 2007 at 9:17 am
Talyn
The problem with making PvP more reliant on player skill is, just like the dev panel said at GDC: “the players don’t have skill.” Harsh, but that’s largely true.
If you have nothing but very talented and skilled gamers, you have a niche game. If you want a diverse player base, you have to be willing to accept a range of skill among that player base.
I just don’t know that I’ll ever consider any MMO — or RPG more to the point — combat to be truly PvP because there’s gear, stats and die-rolls behind the scenes. Very little of it is true, honest-to-gods Player vs. Player.
But that’s what FPS, sports and racing games are for, I guess.