End-game equipment balance – What type of game do you prefer? Part 6

Alrighty it’s time for the next part of my blog series titled “What type of game do you prefer?”. We’re already up to Part 6 and that means it’s time to talk about end-game PvE gear and since I want to streamline these a bit I’m throwing in PvP gear as well. This question was inspired by the issue currently facing Lord of the Rings Online. What type of equipment or reward system do you prefer?

– Raiding = The Best Loot. Nothing comes close.
– Normal groups in a normal dungeon can get gear just as good as raids. Crafted gear is inferior.
– Normal groups, raiding, and crafting all yield the same quality of gear. There’s no clear path.
– Crafted gear is superior to all.
– Gear obtained from PvP is superior to all.
– Something else (perhaps no loot at all! dun dun dun!)

There are plenty more ways you can combine the above options but you get the idea. Where is your ideal game’s best loot? I mentioned above that I was inspired to write this particular article based on the issues LOTRO is currently facing; and it’s a big problem. Right now in LOTRO there is no clear defined way to obtain the best gear. Raiding, grouping, questing, and if you’re incredibly lucky PVPing, all yield loot that is relatively equal. A paradise, right? For a very long time players from all playstyles have shouted that their favored way of gaming be given a chance to have equal reward as others. Well now players in LOTRO have it (not that they haven’t always had it… for some reason they’re just NOW deciding to be vocal) and they’re starting to get upset in a way that’s reversed from the original problem! The raiders are complaining that crafters are getting gear as easily as they are so what’s the point of raiding, and crafter are complaining that raiding gives gear just as good as crafting so why bother crafting! The conclusion? No one will ever be happy, but that’s not the point of this entry.

Where do you see the best loot in your game? Obviously this will be your favored play style, right? Or will it. We as players often become wound up and swept away by the emotion of wanting something we can’t have, or something something now instead of later. I’m guilty of this myself when it comes to wanting good gear to come outside of raiding or dungeons but then find when I go to do the dungeons I feel like it’s pointless to exert the effort. If you remove yourself from the emotion of the situation and thinking with clarity, where do you see the proper balance? I think that LOTRO was on the right track with their efforts. Good gear should come from multiple sources but each of the sets of gear should serve a purpose!

World of Warcraft failed in this department up until shortly after I quit. WoW added PvP gear that gave another stat crucial to PvP. WoW added dungeons that require certain resists and gear that only came from certain locations (So it served a purpose). WoW had crafted gear with resists serve a purpose. While somewhat narrow-minded in their approach WoW now has a decent approach to balanced gear. What Blizzard is missing seems to be the ideal that raiding isn’t the ONLY purpose. Moving on…

One ideal equipment balance would incorporate a need for crafted gear, a need for gear from dungeons, and a need for gear in PvP. The overall driving force for obtaining this gear would not be in order to raid and then rinsing just to repeat. Each gear would be obtained from playing in that particular playstyle. Pvping would give you gear to help you PvP better. Raiding would give you gear to better raid. Gear from group dungeons would give you some sort of benefit to completing more group dungeons. I’ll be completely honest right now and say that I do not have a solution that sounds right for balancing grouping vs raiding; I could probably sit here for months and not get any closer to a solution. However there needs to exist enough content and purpose to serve everything – Or maybe in your ideal game it’s different.

Since my ideal game is one of RVR there would no need to struggle between grouping and raiding in PvE because the ultimate goal never changes – pvp is the ultimate goal. To be honest I think I would only have PvE raids serve one purpose and that would be to have really freaking cool bosses! I’m not a fan of 5 hours crawls through dungeons to get to a boss fight that lasts a few minutes. I’m into the epic encounters! Onyxia was my favorite WoW boss ever – GREAT battle and GREAT implementation. PvE raid bosses in my game would give rewards that are the very top end of what is able to be acquired through PvP or something else. Bottom line my end-game loot system would be balanced with a very obvious bias towards RvR. I have to add that I think the public quest system in WAR sounds fantastic!

Combining Parts 1-6: I prefer a good looking game that runs well with great content, where the focus is on RVR and fighting for your realm’s mutual goals. Any PvE content should be fully developed and friendly to both soloing and grouping and be beneficial in some way to both. The death penalty should be light yet reasonable enough to discourage death. Certain items should bind on acquire/equip but in general gear should be available to everyone. The game would not revolve around the gear, the gear would revolve around the game. All items in the game would have the same goal – to gear you up for RVR.

I think you will find that this is the hardest of the questions yet. It takes more thought than the previous parts and requires that you be selfless for a few minutes and think about other playstyles that are not like your own. In my attempt to hopefully relay my favored approach to end-game you will see that I have given thought to each play style. I am definitely looking forward to any replies, emails, comments you guys have on this one. My advice to you is simple: Don’t try and make your game revolve around the gear. Make your gear revolve around your game. As soon as I started thinking in that frame of mind it became a little easier.