Hello every one, I’d like to cover a topic of gear life expectancy and lasting appeal. I believe some items in game are too easy to get and some are too hard, this really affects the lasting appeal for the game as well as for the item. Please keep in mind i only will discuss items that character can wear, not crafting materials and etc.
The item category break down:
1. trash (grey, blue)
2. place holders (master work, rare)
3. end game rank 1 (exotic)
4 end game rank 2 (ascended)
5 life time (Legendary)
Now for PvE we do understand that gear needs to scale in power statistic wise. For PvE cosmetic look is not enough of importance.
Category 1 is nothing really to speak about, usual trash for salvaging.
Life Expectancy of full itemization: 1 day.
Time to acquire: 10-20% of Life Expectancy per item
Category 2 is mainly for leveling ease (master work) and rare should be 80s starting gear. The start of the journey where people farm for better gear like exotics.
Life Expectancy of full itemization: 2-4 days.
Time to acquire: 30% of Life Expectancy per item
Category 3 Should be the first tier of rewards from easy to moderate difficulty content. I would say like general 80 crafting, dungeons (in case that no one wants raids it should be reward for part one and two of the dungeon).
Life Expectancy of full itemization: 25-30 days.
Time to acquire: 1 day per item
Category 4 is a top tier gear that is nearly unsurpassed. Gear should come from raid rewards (if no one wants raids, let’s say Dungeon part 3 would reward it) as well as some harder crafting and big world events like dragons.
Life Expectancy of full itemization: 90 days and up, till new tire comes out if ever.
Time to acquire: 6 days per item
Category 5 is a type of gear that would last long and would require a fair amount of time to get it.
Life Expectancy of the item: 6 months and up.
Time to acquire: 1-2 months per item
To explain how the life expectancy formula works: let’s say set of 5 armor pieces, 2 weapons, 2 rings, 2 accessories and 1 amulet is a full set for one character. Based on Category 3 the calculation looks like this: 12 items, time to acquire each is 1 day = 12 days to get full set and than the set of this quality will be viable for next 30 days, so you can start getting your next tier.
Finally, once the top tier gear is reached, you can work on cosmetic side of the gear. you can do so before reaching end level of gear. Those categories only apply to gear Quality, not Cosmetic look. The cosmetic looks should also take some time to acquire but not as long.
please let me know what you think about it? i personally believe it’s good since quality stats should not take 1 day to get like current exotics, no should the cool looks like mjolnir be so hard to acquire as it is.