Yes, yes, ArenaNet’s bringing out another tier of armor, hereby retracting their belief that gear progression is evil. Let’s all huddle together and cry ourselves to sleep.
No, wait. Let’s not.
Instead, let’s have a look at how gear progression has been employed, rather than what it is.
As far as MMORPG business goes, Gear progression has always existed. Always, you will be able to acquire stronger, better looking armor through farming and grinding (nicer term here would be “playing the game”) . How most MMORPG employ these progression in the past though, is by separating these two progression into two category – PVE, and PVP .
The most recent title which follows such system is SWTOR, which requires you to grind dungeon for a set of PVE gear, and then PVP for a set of PVP gear. Most free-to-play titles also follow this format because it’s a well established design dated all the way back to the nineties.
The key word here is Well established, meaning that player can instantly recognize the design, therefore spending less time in figuring the system out and more times on playing (grinding) the actual game.
Just because a design is well established, doesn’t mean it isn’t outdated and bad, though. People hate gear progression. They hate it to the point when lose shore is announced they talked about boycotting the new event and even getting a refund (haha oh wow…)
This all seem very strange to me; because there really isn’t anything wrong with gear progression in its entirety. Gear progression offers player a sense of accomplishment over time and gives you something to work towards as you play. It baffles me why such a brilliant design is often scoffed at until I look at some of the replies and realize – most people don’t actually have a problem with “Gear progression”.
Rather, they have problem with how it is employed. Here are some of the common problems -
For player versus player, gear progression kills the game. Player who spent more time getting better gear will destroys those without. This is bad. Everyone knows this is bad.
Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have this design, so crisis averted. (And yet baddies STILL manage to find excuses for their incompetence, whether it’s class or lags… i suppose that’s inevitable, though.)
2. For player versus environment, gear progression is bad because players with access to better gear is always going to be a preference in dungeons – but then this is inevitable.
The current Guild Wars 2 attempts to address this issue by making exotic easy to obtain, yet still people prefer to play with those with better gears. Most people is always on the lookout for an easy way around problems. Even with content scaling people still does it, and maybe we should just accept it : nothing can be done about this.
3. Again, for player versus environment, Gear progression CAN be a bad thing because if a certain dungeon requires you to possess a minimum gear or else you will absolutely fail, then you are denied that content and instead you’re forced to grind for these gears for hours on end.
Is that’s what’s coming to guild wars 2?
Judging from the information given, it certainly seems like it.
New condition that require special gear to resist? Check. New dungeon has this new condition in place? Check. Having to grind for this new set of tier in order to complete new dungeons?
…
if the answer is Check, then Guild Wars 2 has revert back to the well established, but outdated and horrible mechanics that everyone hates.
If the answer is not, however, then there really isn’t anything wrong with adding a new set of gear. If we can still enjoy the new content, complete it with relative ease without having to worry so much about the ‘agony’ condition and the need to find infusion gears, I welcome the chance at acquiring better gears.
Face it, new gear is always going to come out sooner or later. Gear progression is an absolute necessity to MMO. It gives you a sense of achievement, it prolong your playtime and it give you a reason to grind. In the future, when the level cap is raised, you can be prepared for new exotics that offer better stats than your current level 80s.
Contrary, a game without gear progression is plain bad because at max level you’re basically just playing dress-up with your character. You pour hours and hours into grinding, only to acquire some skins, how is that satisfying?
Long story short, Gear progression itself isn’t evil.
The way gear progression is employed in modern day MMORPG is. Needing certain degree of gears to do dungeon or to PVP is.
So no, I’m not going to whine about Anet adding more gear progression – unless I need those new gear to complete those new dungeons, and I suggest you don’t until we’ve figure out just how difficult those new dungeons are without the new tier of gears.
Cheers!
(edited by showatt.9413)
