Season Gear please dont

Razour

If the "power" of gear cranks up season on season then will mob difficulty crank up to balance this?

Or is this a stealth nerf of mob (relative) difficulty?

And, yes, I agree with others on the question of what this means for crafters - if the seasonal gear comes from drops there needs to be ways for crafters to keep pace else the value of crafting is lost.

arkansas_ESO

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

I would just make past season gear extremely easy to obtain and make it very viable. I mean like, a couple days of casual play easy. Kind of like a full set of exotic gear in GW2. That should allow an easy entry into the game.

They should take a look at how SWTOR initially tried to do their PVP gear, and make extra effort not to do anything remotely similar to that.

Make it craftable. Any gear that is last season can be crafted at one of the existing crafting stations.

Give a little to both groups.

For this to work well, they would need to cancel the plan of making out of season gear purchasable from a vendor.

jeevin

It worries me that the best game play design they can come up with is perpetual gear grind and Champion Point leveling. Come on Zenimax there has be be a more compelling reason to keep playing.

Wolfshead

Are PvP season gear we are talk about or is PvE season gear we are talk about??

If is PvP season gear we are talking about i don't see any problem with to be honest for fact is that PvP can be very competition.

But if is PvE people would go crazy for fact is that PvE loot is more random drop on and take way to long to complete a whole set i reminder when i play AoC it took me 1.5 year to complete T1 set on my DT back then that was pain i was farming very week and i was go crazy.

Laura

wait till we know a little more about it before losing your mind over it IMHO.

Akiainavas

As long as season gear is not necessarily the best available in all aspects and definitely a must have - then I'm all for it.

Lawmanus

As far as i could tell from the pod cast, the season gear would play into a "Champion rating" which will increase over time with the gear and champion points, and needed to complete new trails, something like you need a set amount of rating to complete set trail.

Razour

Laura wrote: »

wait till we know a little more about it before losing your mind over it IMHO.

Agreed. But at the same time one of the points that was made a number of times by the ZOS panel was that they do monitor the forums and use the feedback there to inform direction and priorities. So I think it is perfectly valid to raise questions and concerns here now when there is still an opportunity to influence things.

Far better to keep a level head and raise things early than to QQ after the event (tho' of course that's a given anyways).

Kego

Season Gear is fine, but ZOS should keep the Softcaps in PvP always one Season behind. There for current PvE Season gear only benefits in PvE.

Personally I don't like it. Damn, even DAOC didn't need such supid things. There has been only one Gear upgrade every 12 month and that was fine.

People who think current endgame is boring should move to Cyrodiil and PvP. Do sieges, do gank groups, do Tournaments. Damn Gamer these days seems so helpless. Back in the days we could make our own fun in MMOs expecially with a wide open PvP Zone, just like in childhood where we didn't need computer games to have fun in the summer...oh wait, I forgot children these day already need Smartphones and Tabletts with 6 years...

Sotha_Sil

If I understood well, they said that when a new season comes, you can get the old season gear easily. The purpose is not to discourage the players but try to please everyone.

killedbyping

What the hell are you talking about ? Season gear is a great idia.
First of all, constantly appearing new gear IS the thing that keep players in the game and make them to play even more.
Having season gear will make many players like... proud of them self ? Bcoz they will have a gear which nobody of players who came later have.

I see many people here compare MMO to real life for some reason. Just... WHY?!
Yes, in real life you would probably want to just get what you want and then just sit on your ass doing nothing and use what you have untill the end of your days.
But why would want that in MMO RPG ? You guys seem to never played MMO before. As soon as you get all you wanted, you lose interest to the game and just stop playing it.
Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

Wolfshead

killedbyping wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about ? Season gear is a great idia.
First of all, constantly appearing new gear IS the thing that keep players in the game and make them to play even more.
Having season gear will make many players like... proud of them self ? Bcoz they will have a gear which nobody of players who came later have.

I see many people here compare MMO to real life for some reason. Just... WHY?!
Yes, in real life you would probably want to just get what you want and then just sit on your ass doing nothing and use what you have untill the end of your days.
But why would want that in MMO RPG ? You guys seem to never played MMO before. As soon as you get all you wanted, you lose interest to the game and just stop playing it.
Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

I agree with you but if the go to update with new season gear very 3 to 4 month the need it be easy to get while that season gear is on live server for otherwise it is pointless to try to get before the season is over even if you can buy at vendor for in game currency for as i say early in this post it took me 1.5 year to get the full T1 set on DT in AoC which in this case would be way to long time to get full season gear i just tell as i see it.

Kego

killedbyping wrote: »

Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

That's true. But how many people do you think are already V12 + Allianz Rank 50? Expecially the PvP Rank should be something that the first persons will hit maximum in around 1.5 years from now, with playing around 4-5 hours a day.

The problem today in MMOs is, that you ca reach everything to fast. Look at WoW. You hit Level 90 in 1 month. Do some Looking for Raids/Flex Raids, got the current gear that is only 20% lower in Stats than High Tier Raiding and peng, you lose interests cause you are not willed to spend 20 hours per week to get that 20% more stats, cause you know, with the next Tier Update everything starts from new.

Razour

killedbyping wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about ? Season gear is a great idia.
First of all, constantly appearing new gear IS the thing that keep players in the game and make them to play even more.
Having season gear will make many players like... proud of them self ? Bcoz they will have a gear which nobody of players who came later have.

I see many people here compare MMO to real life for some reason. Just... WHY?!
Yes, in real life you would probably want to just get what you want and then just sit on your ass doing nothing and use what you have untill the end of your days.
But why would want that in MMO RPG ? You guys seem to never played MMO before. As soon as you get all you wanted, you lose interest to the game and just stop playing it.
Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

Okay - I think what you've just put your finger on is kind of key...
- will each new season's gear be linked to a new level cap?
OR
- will each new season's gear be for the existing level cap?

If it's the former then I would hope that new crafting levels would be introduced to maintain the balance between farmed gear and crafted gear.

If it's the latter then it would be interesting to understand how crafted gear keeps pace with the arms race that the season's will introduce.

Anastasia

dafraorb16_ESO wrote: »

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

How will crafting and crafters fit into all of this? If I'm reading this right, the best gear in the game at any given point in time will be the gear in the current season, and will be hard to get during the season. 'Hard to get' usually means that it'll be a drop-only piece that drops from some annoyingly hard boss.

If the best gear in the game at any point in time is drop-only, where do crafters come in? If the second-best gear is from the last season, and can be bought from a vendor, crafters begin to lag behind even further in terms of quality. Will crafter gear always be inferior to the gear found in Season 1, and will only fall further and further behind the more seasons the game has?

Also, what happens to all the gear in Season 1 when the game is in Season 20? It'll be pretty much useless compared to Season 19&20, so why even have it there in the first place? Why constantly make gear outdated and inferior? Is there seriously no better way to keep players logging in on a daily basis?

hey ZOS we need an answer now

---

*Heh, they won't tell you/the Crafters.

That information will become more clear after its already on test, m a y b e just before. No company is going to willingly release information that could possibly cost them any part of their target market.

Note: Its best not to rely on what TESO was originally marketed, promoted or released media interviews about. This MMO has MUCH MORE than what one might consider the 'normal growing pains' and ADJUSTMENTS in this, its first year. Really. I wouldn't even call it 'adjustments'. I would call it reversals, deletes, stretching out activation of whats coming, and complete swaths of content changes.

Core MMO components have either not materialized, are 'planned to be put in over the next YEAR maybe, or been nerfed. Look what was done to original design for the Vet+ 1-10 content without regard for how it would affect players arriving at endgame with all that solo experience and not squared away by having a reason to group up a decent amount and gotten really ready for endgame.

So Crafters, even though Crafting was foretold to always be relevant, heh, but it may, it may not. Don't think that can't/won't be changed while 'splaining' it away very charmingly.

Just have to wait and see, then make your decisions about subbing or continuing to sub. You're not going to get forward info which might make you 'pull out... (early?')

Lawmanus

killedbyping wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about ? Season gear is a great idia.
First of all, constantly appearing new gear IS the thing that keep players in the game and make them to play even more.
Having season gear will make many players like... proud of them self ? Bcoz they will have a gear which nobody of players who came later have.

I see many people here compare MMO to real life for some reason. Just... WHY?!
Yes, in real life you would probably want to just get what you want and then just sit on your ass doing nothing and use what you have untill the end of your days.
But why would want that in MMO RPG ? You guys seem to never played MMO before. As soon as you get all you wanted, you lose interest to the game and just stop playing it.
Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

Without a gear grind, there is still fun to be had in the game; new skill lines, pvp ranks ,new instances/trails and chaseing champion points, skyshards/achievements, the new spell crafting coming in, dyes and general fun from playing around with your char. All in all alot to do to improve your char. Some years back, counter strike was a much played game, where the only advancement to be had was getting better at the game. So imo if the game is fun, you dont need a dog biscuit to keep having fun.

Iluvrien

Anastasia wrote: »

So Crafters, even though Crafting was foretold to always be relevant, heh, but it may, it may not. Don't think that can't/won't be changed while 'splaining' it away very charmingly.

Just have to wait and see, then make your decisions about subbing or continuing to sub. You're not going to get forward info which might make you 'pull out... (early?')

You see, now this I just don't get.

Surely if you have information about a system that might cause a loss of subs (and therefore revenue) then surely the best idea would be to publicise it. After all, if you tell the playerbase about it and then the forums explode then you have a chance to, perhaps, reconsider some aspects of it so that you don't lose those subs... or at least not as many.

The approach in your post is decidedly short-term based. It assumes that the subs will be lost once the system goes in. Whereas the suggestion in my previous paragraph offers a way that the damage could be lessened, or even prevented from occurring at all.

There are enough threads on the forums at the moment, and probably on reddit etc., dealing with various parts of the revelations about Update 3 from the Quakecon presentation and subsequent blog post to suggest that this is a viable approach. Feedback is being given in response to these ideas. Why not expect that they would continue the process?

Tabbycat

On the one hand I do not want seasonal gear unless the equivalent can be crafted because I enjoy being able to craft the best things in the game. It's part of the reason why I spend my time trying to unlock all the traits.

On the other hand, I realize that those who work hard on end game content should be rewarded.

It just worries me that when you introduce seasonal gear, if it has even a small advantage, you are going to see groups that exclude others from content if they don't already have the best gear.

I think I'm just going to have to wait and see how this seasonal gear affects the game. I definitely understand the need for it to give PVE players something to work towards when they run out of current content. But I can't help but worry about the inevitable power creep that will result.

Perhaps one thing developers can consider doing is giving us new crafting set bonuses available at special crafting stations which would allows us to make gear with set bonuses that are highly desirable and not available on any seasonal set gear that drops. So that even if we are unable to craft the current season gear, we can make the previous season gear but make it better than when it was first available. So you'd end up with something like season .5 (crafted set bonus) and season 1 (dropped) , season 1.5 (crafted set bonus) and season 2 (dropped). etc. With the old dropped season gear being available for purchase at vendors. I wouldn't mind this.

killedbyping

Lawmanus wrote: »

killedbyping wrote: »

What the hell are you talking about ? Season gear is a great idia.
First of all, constantly appearing new gear IS the thing that keep players in the game and make them to play even more.
Having season gear will make many players like... proud of them self ? Bcoz they will have a gear which nobody of players who came later have.

I see many people here compare MMO to real life for some reason. Just... WHY?!
Yes, in real life you would probably want to just get what you want and then just sit on your ass doing nothing and use what you have untill the end of your days.
But why would want that in MMO RPG ? You guys seem to never played MMO before. As soon as you get all you wanted, you lose interest to the game and just stop playing it.
Therefore the LACK of new content, new level caps and new gear IS the reason why ppl will unsub, not the opposite...

Without a gear grind, there is still fun to be had in the game; new skill lines, pvp ranks ,new instances/trails and chaseing champion points, skyshards/achievements, the new spell crafting coming in, dyes and general fun from playing around with your char. All in all alot to do to improve your char. Some years back, counter strike was a much played game, where the only advancement to be had was getting better at the game. So imo if the game is fun, you dont need a dog biscuit to keep having fun.

For me and many other expirienced MMO players NO, its not. PVP in this game, imho, is boring in general. And all those skyshards and even champion points are way to easy to get.

Goresnort

Two questions come to mind when reading this thread.

How large is the possible market segment for a fantasy based mmorpg that offers both horizontal and vertical progression?

How large is the possible market segment for a fantasy based mmorpg that only offers horizontal progression?

The top ten revenue earning subscription based mmo's for 2013:


The top ten revenue earning non-subscription based mmo's for 2013:


The top ten revenue per player non-subscription based mmo's for 2013:



GW2 shunned vertical progression and embraced a system of pure horizontal progression.

GW2 launched to sterling reviews in the (8 of 10) to (10 of 10) bracket, and was labelled as the next 'big' mmo.

GW2 has seen frequent continual content development and polish to the game.

GW2 is a sub-free B2P cash shop game.

It was a mmo that 'everybody' bought or tried.

While being a recently released MMO that was very well received by the gaming press, and while scoring high on revenue per player, it does not even rank among top 10 revenue earning subscription free mmo's.

Still early in its life span, GW2 has become a game that 'nobody' plays.

If 'horizontal only' progression is the 'best' format for a mmo in terms of attracting players, and thereby possible revenue, then what did GW2 do 'wrong'?

Is that the only market segment that ESO should compete for?
What financial future would that entail for ESO?
Is there room for ESO in a small market segment that is already dominated by a sub-free cash shop game?

If ESO was or was not going to have vertical progression elements, was a major question I had before deciding to buy and subscribe to the game.

My hope was that it would contain both vertical and horizontal progression.

I felt the information contained in this developer article gave sufficient confirmation, to warrant a purchase.

elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/2014/03/26/esos-veteran-content

To quote the article:

The Future

Describing the veteran gameplay strategy in these terms also leaves out a very important, but necessary element in the strategy: new systems or growth in breadth as well as vertical growth of current systems.

If Zenimax was to decide to change or alter this stated intent, which is fully within their rights and perogative as developers of the game, and pursue or switch to a progression system that was mostly horizontal in nature and severely curbing, removing or halting vertical progression, then I do hope they would inform us that this was their revised intent.

If I have misinterpreted the above intention statement by Zenimax, then that is my mistake and I have bought the wrong product. It is a statement that in many ways can be understood differently based on different consumer preferences.

Ser Lobo

Question that bothers me: why does 'vertical progression' have to be 'better gear'? Why can't it be 'better abilities'?

Doesn't the champion point system count as vertical progression?

Wouldn't raising the VR cap be a form of vertical progression?

Is it necessary to introduce a gear-grind that invalidates crafting and further supports a divide between the playerbase (casual players who don't treat the game as a job, versus hardcore players who log in at 6am to run four hour raids every day)?

Because as inflammatory as that sounds, it's exactly what all those top games do (except EvE Online) and why many of us are here at ESO and not playing one of those ever so popular games.



Reality TV may be popular, but many of us still would rather watch Game of Thrones or BattleStar Galactica. Can't ESO be the EvE of the fantasy world?

Tabbycat

Goresnort wrote: »

*snip*

GW 2 shunned vertical progression and embraced a system of pure horizontal progression.

GW2 launched to sterling reviews in the (8 of 10) to (10 of 10) bracket, and was labelled as the next 'big' mmo.

GW2 has seen frequent continual content development and polish to the game.

GW2 is a sub-free B2P cash shop game.

It was a mmo that 'everybody' bought or tried.

While being a recently released MMO that was very well received by the gaming press, and while scoring high on revenue per player, it does not even rank among top 10 revenue earning subscription free mmo's.

Still early in its life span, GW2 has become a game that 'nobody' plays.

If 'horizontal only' progression is the 'best' format for a mmo in terms of attracting players, and thereby possible revenue, then what did GW2 do 'wrong'?

Is that the only market segment that ESO should compete for?
What financial future would that entail for ESO?
Is there room for ESO in a small market segment that is already dominated by a sub-free cash shop game?

If ESO was or was not going to have vertical progression elements, was a major question I had before deciding to buy and subscribe to the game.

My hope was that it would contain both vertical and horizontal progression.

*snip*

GW2 was sadly lacking many of the elements that were found in GW1 that kept players playing that game for many years despite the fact that it had no vertical armor progression. However, it had a lot of challenging activities. If GW2 had enough sense to have kept a lot of the things from GW1 that players found fun, they wouldn't be having so many issues with player retention. As it stands now, there's nothing to do once you reach level cap. You could grind fractals over and over and over and over and over and over again but I don't think anyone really wants to do that for years on end.

Then you have the living story stuff that doesn't add any meaningful lasting content to the game at all. Living Story is the number 1 reason why I stopped playing GW2. It just isn't fun.

The sad thing about GW2 is that players are returning to GW1. That should tell you something.

seneferab16_ESO

GW2 was sadly lacking many of the elements that were found in GW1 that kept players playing that game for many years despite the fact that it had no vertical armor progression. However, it had a lot of challenging activities. If GW2 had enough sense to have kept a lot of the things from GW1 that players found fun, they wouldn't be having so many issues with player retention. As it stands now, there's nothing to do once you reach level cap. You could grind fractals over and over and over and over and over and over again but I don't think anyone really wants to do that for years on end.

Then you have the living story stuff that doesn't add any meaningful lasting content to the game at all. Living Story is the number 1 reason why I stopped playing GW2. It just isn't fun.

The sad thing about GW2 is that players are returning to GW1. That should tell you something.[/quote]

Agree with this.
I hated GW2, but not because of the horisontal gear, but because of a bland and boring game. Combat wasn't fun and inspiring, AvAvA was all about blobbing up and zerging and the dungeon PvE was just.. flat.
GW2 not being a huge success wasn't about the horisontal gear progression, it was about a lot of other things.

Kego

I got bored in GW2 cause there where only 5 Skills per Weapon, that couldn't even get changed.
In ESO, I can have only 6 Skills per Weapon as well, but I am free, what skills I am using.

The other point: PvE and PvP was no fun at all with no true Tanks and Healer.

Wifeaggro13

Lawmanus wrote: »

Heard in a pod cast the other day, that you guys are planing to make season gear, that will be better and better for each season. please dont make another gear tradmill mmo i really liked the gear is just gear approche you startet out with.

But its horrible though it devalues content. there is literally no gear progression at all in this game. if your a guy that sits in cyrodil all day and PVP's it might be fine .But from the looks of the population there i dont think thats what is gonna keep the light on

Woogawoman

The main reason I stopped playing Star Trek Online was because the new content was focused around "grind some mini game to earn stuff to buy the new shiny ship and weapons." What's the point of a new ship if there's no where fun to fly it, or new enemies to fight with it?

Wifeaggro13

kieso wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Lawmanus wrote: »

Its not so much how easy or hard it is to get, its more that i dislike the constant chase for gear. I spend 4 years in wow as a raider and 5 years in AoC raiding and hunting gear, in the long run it gets tiresome, thats why i chose to move on to Eso. It seem like a new way of playing for the fun of Things, to beat the challenges with out being on that constant hunt to get that last item to complete your new set. Much like playing a football match with some friends in the summer you dont get a trophy, but you do it cus its fun and bragging rights ofc .

The problem remains that without something to strive towards, the game becomes stale. Horizontal progression sounds nice in theory, but once you are at cap, you dont feel your character progressing. GW2 is a perfect example. You could pretty much max your character out in the first month and there was nothing else strive towards except World PvP and more skins.

The thing here is a nice balance of vertical and horizontal progression. My guess is that the Seasons will have a bit of both. The armor values may remain the same but there may be interesting Gear Sets introduced. So your power isnt increase substantially but you have a goal to get new sets. Combine this with the Champion System (vertical progression), you can keep people for a much longer time.

GW2 isnt a failure by any means though...

It Depends on what you define a failure as. Does guild wars 2 have people playing ? Yes there are people playing it. But if you define it as a failure by it getting Friggin beat by lineage 2 in revenue since its second qrtr financials,then yes its a failure a big fat one. Come the F on man, Lineage 2 is making more money for Arena net then GW2 LOL i would not call that a success by any means.

Anastasia

Iluvrien wrote: »

Anastasia wrote: »

So Crafters, even though Crafting was foretold to always be relevant, heh, but it may, it may not. Don't think that can't/won't be changed while 'splaining' it away very charmingly.

Just have to wait and see, then make your decisions about subbing or continuing to sub. You're not going to get forward info which might make you 'pull out... (early?')

You see, now this I just don't get.

Surely if you have information about a system that might cause a loss of subs (and therefore revenue) then surely the best idea would be to publicise it. After all, if you tell the playerbase about it and then the forums explode then you have a chance to, perhaps, reconsider some aspects of it so that you don't lose those subs... or at least not as many.

The approach in your post is decidedly short-term based. It assumes that the subs will be lost once the system goes in. Whereas the suggestion in my previous paragraph offers a way that the damage could be lessened, or even prevented from occurring at all.

There are enough threads on the forums at the moment, and probably on reddit etc., dealing with various parts of the revelations about Update 3 from the Quakecon presentation and subsequent blog post to suggest that this is a viable approach. Feedback is being given in response to these ideas. Why not expect that they would continue the process?

---

Yea. Like they did with Vet+ content eh? Maybe that is why. I do not agree in any way shape or form, but it is definitely they way they handle things. I wish your reasonable and logical representation of these issues were a guideline that ZOS followed. I respect a company that sticks to core elements originally envisioned and marketed, with reasonable variations, adjustments and additions, not core elements that are deleted.

I consider Vet+ content not receiving additional grouping e x p, better loot or other group-centric motivators and instead of being diluted as being a move that directly affects endame and the players who arrive there in a state of ill preparedness to be a consequence of the Vet content nerf.

Grouping in the vet levels is an element that was in fact promoted and advertised to veteran MMO PvE'rs in order to be attractive to those potential subscribers. Heres an example: how would PvP'rs feel if the PvE players currently demanding a PvE soft area be activated inside Cyrodill were to be changed by ZOS?

I'm thinking there would be a feeling of w-t-h, and why and how does that affect our PvP content? Same questions I still ask regarding the Vet+ content nerf.

Alphashado

The carrot on the end of the stick is what keeps people subbed. So the seasonal gear is a good thing.

Plus they are going to make the gear from the previous season easy to get. So you will never be too far behind with a little effort. I think it's a good idea. Decisions like this indicate that zos is learning from their mistakes. They are finally taking a look around and implementing concepts that are proven to be successful.

Revolutionary ideas are fine, but sometimes it's just smart to stick with what works. And gear treadmills keep people entertained and driven for years.

Lawmanus

Alphashado wrote: »

The carrot on the end of the stick is what keeps people subbed. So the seasonal gear is a good thing.

Plus they are going to make the gear from the previous season easy to get. So you will never be too far behind with a little effort. I think it's a good idea. Decisions like this indicate that zos is learning from their mistakes. They are finally taking a look around and implementing concepts that are proven to be successful.

Revolutionary ideas are fine, but sometimes it's just smart to stick with what works. And gear treadmills keep people entertained and driven for years.

It might keep some subbed, but it will drive others away it is not so one sided