Id have to agree with the OP. I cussed the gear treadmill in past games, but in all honesty - I rely on it to keep me interested in an MMO. A lot of my 'fun' comes from character progression, and a gear treadmill does just that. My stats grow, I can feel a legitimate increase in strength, and my character doesn't feel stagnant. I can also match that change against the changes in other players.

PvP and PvE Achievements when thoughtfully developed are one alternative to the grind cycle. Rewards tied to achievements could include gear or rare components. This would encourage folks to play the game in diverse manners, getting out of Cyrodiil perhaps to see the world and vice versa. The Champion System should go a long way too in giving the feeling of character progression without so much gear grind.

I just want a system in which everyone has access to all the best gear no matter how you want to play or how much time you have to dedicate to it. I also want a system which brings the alliance together instead of every person for themselves. That is why I previously posted this idea:

What I would like to propose is that the special drops throughout the game be scrolls. The scrolls are basically plans or recipes or instructions for a master craftsman. When looted, these scrolls automatically go to a queue which players from the realm can see who found what and what it does. Daily there is a ceremony in which these scrolls are imbued into an NPC master craftsman. These craftsmen are located in the frontier in special fortresses. If you wish to purchase a piece of gear it will cost you the same whether it is a basic white, no stats, or even the highest ranked stats, golden. That weapon is forever tied to that craftsman NPC. If the craftsman NPC should happen to be killed by an enemy realm then all of the weapons they have created become normal white weapons. Once the original realm restores order to their fortress, a new NPC craftsman will replace each craftsman who has been killed. They will only be able to make the basic weapons until the realm finds new scrolls for them to be imbued with.

As you can see, with this mechanic it brings the realm together both to find the scrolls within the world and to protect the craftsmen who have made the gear. Whether scrolls are found by raids, solo players, RvR, PvP, or whatever they will all benefit the realm. You could also have world wide events in which the realm needs to work together in order to find special scrolls. A side mechanic could be the collecting of the materials needed for crafting the gear, but I don't know how that can be done so that it benefits the realm and not just the player farming the materials.

I've never felt end game should be about gear in an mmo. I'm fine with the notion that gear degrades and needs repair/replacement, but really I've always felt that gear always feels wrong as a progression. The difference that marks a hero are his skills, his hard work, intuition, intelligence, willpower and guts. Equipment might play a small part in the equation, but realistically gear is something easily replaced. I see the interest in having progression, but I really would much prefer something along the lines of Spellcrafting and Champion system to be that progression, not so much the equipment. Equipment is something that has always repulsed me in mmo's. Its about achievement and fun. All too often MMO's use the carrot and stick of equipment to keep you playing, often missions that were poorly designed and excluding better designed but older ones. I'm fine with having to do the lame missions to achieve something, but if its just boring or clunky I hate the notion that its something I have to do ad infinitum to get anywhere in the game. The Gear grind is something I fear about MMO's, and usually what ultimately gets me to leave one. When the game becomes less about fun, and more about the easy to design poorly implemented boring mission that has to be repeated 1000 times to get the latest greatest loot... well lets just say that's when my interest in that MMO wanes, and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I do not agree with the OP, and the reason why has been espoused by others here: I don't have the time or the inclination for a massive gear grind.

I feel that player skill, not equipment should be the determining factor in the game, in PvP and PvE.

I appreciate that some players wish to raid, some wish to PvP, some wish to small group. It is in satisfying these disparate groups that ZOS makes money.

Nevertheless where I feel that the OP has erred in citing the gear grind as the end function of ESO (a gear grind will alienate all players PvE and PvP who do not have the time or inclination to take part in the grind. They will fall behind and not be competitive in game leading to cancellation, therefore this cannot be the end goal). Gear should be the means to a different end - playing a fun game!

I don't PvP in Cyrodiil because I want better gear, I PvP because I enjoy the challenge of fighting other players over a massive map with many objectives. I doubt I will ever be Emperor, I don't have the time but I can still take one out on occasion and former Emperors more often, because, despite the time they've taken to earn that achievement, we're not so different. The time they've taken has rewarded them with new skills (avatar and player (hopefully)), not substantially better gear than me.

Equally if I don't fancy PvP, I am happy to join a group and PvE. But I don't PvE to find good gear, I PvE to overcome a challenge set by a game designer and to enjoy the story, ESO has excelled in this aspect. Its fun to solo, and it is fun to share that experience with others, to revel in overcoming a situation together.

In summary, I think that a gear grind is a cover for poor gameplay and ZOS should just focus on new game content and new challenges to overcome. I fear that a gear grind will alienate casual players like me, slowly making us less competitive and leading to our leaving ESO. If new gear must come in, then it should be more specialised, not more powerful, and with the number of potential builds available (after more balancing) this should keep ZOS going for quite some time.

I just want to state again because some people missed it, but I am 'okay' with having people able to craft some of the best gear, but the thing is that anyone who has checked their mail in the past week can craft stuff better than we can work a lot harder for. I feel like if you are making gear that is starting to compare with pvp gear or vet dungeon then we need to have rare materials that we need to get a hold of and have to do some grinding for that. I honestly feel like if I spend the time and build up my character then I should be able to punish someone who doesn't put up the effort unless they are exceptionally good.

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

They always said that the best gear would be craftable, I also think it is not really working as it is now, mainly because crafting was way to easy (except enchanting then, but they brought it down a bit) if all were as hard to lvl as enchanting that would be another story

MerusMalumb14_ESO wrote: »

* The elite pvp gear. It costs a stagering 220k AP but when you compare it to the midrange counterpart, we notice a very small gap, as I mentioned before that gap should be blown much more open. The cost is fine, in my opinion, but that gear should be dramatically better and totally justify spending days to grind up all of those AP's. A players in full elite pvp gear should dominate any players in mid range gear button mashing some cheap ability rotation.

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for a pvp player 220k isn't much at all
in a couple hours an evening I can pvp I already gather between 50 -100k AP, so it would take like 3 evening to get a full set, and I'm not even an experienced pvp'r since I can only play in Cyro for longer than a half hour since 1.4-ish patch (mac)

That price is not for an entire set. That price is per piece. If you want seven pieces of armor, a weapon and three pieces of jewelry, then you are going to need around 2.5M AP, which is a very long grind given how many players spend AP on siege weapons, wall and door repair kits and forward camps. Those are serious drains on AP, not to mention that only a small segment of the players are making 100K+ AP a day. In fact most players are not earning 50K AP per day judging from the faction and class leaderboards.

MerusMalumb14_ESO wrote: »

I just want to state again because some people missed it, but I am 'okay' with having people able to craft some of the best gear, but the thing is that anyone who has checked their mail in the past week can craft stuff better than we can work a lot harder for. I feel like if you are making gear that is starting to compare with pvp gear or vet dungeon then we need to have rare materials that we need to get a hold of and have to do some grinding for that. I honestly feel like if I spend the time and build up my character then I should be able to punish someone who doesn't put up the effort unless they are exceptionally good.

I can kind of agree with the farming the mats to make gear ( crafter are / should be a subset of players who run pve or pvp, otherwise what are we doing, and I consider myself a crafter), but part of the problem also with the crafting is the time invested currently doesn't = reward (8th trait item sets are not balanced to provide a better combination of bonuses or special trait in comparison to earlier sets). If they make a 10 trait set in the future with the release of a 10 trait, it would take a player 2 months to be able to make their own (a month if working with players) while most dungeons / trails could be on farm mode by that time. This is why I personally think you need to balance it, have good gear come from all three areas, but the best gear being derived from 2 out of the three areas.

They could work special crafting stations into the world, at the end of dungeons, in the imperial city, and limit it once per day or per dungeon, slow down production rate keeping good gear hard to get. Make dungeon boss' drop rare mats, throw in item you can buy with AP, just as long as it isn't one area making the best gear imo.

In trials you can find gear that is comparable to crafted gear and perhaps a tiny bit better for some players. For example the mage set and there are several others that can only be obtained at VR ranks from trials. If this is not good enough for you then to bad move on.

Another thing about the gear treadmill is this - why have better gear? So I craft my really good gear but for what purpose? PvP? Yeah if things are fair. That rarely happens. I don't remember the last time I was attacked by a single player in a open PvP setting in any game. PvE? Here's where the treadmill occurs anyway. You don't need legendary gear to kill the pack of 3 VR14 mobs. The gear is a means to an end. But to do what? And that's why the treadmill works. Better gear to kill tougher bosses to get better gear than you already have to kill tougher bosses you're currently fighting.

Thing about the gear treadmill is you can get off any time.

DDuke wrote: »

if only casuals who log in twice a week keep playing.

This is the classic mistake the hardcore raid crowd make. I play upwards of 40 hours / week right now (and have been pretty consistent since beta). So I'm hardcore right?

Except I have 0 interest in 12 man raids. Its just not fun for me. I might try to do it once for the dye color but that's its.

Of course progression in an MMO (be it champion system or gear) is time = progression.

The objection is to the idea that the time has to be spent doing 12 man raids in a 4 hour block with 12 people to get the best progression, as opposed to spending equal time doing pvp or some sort of crafting related activity, be it grinding for mats, or quests for recipes or whatever.

I agree with the OP. Gear at end game is very boring. I really don't see the point of doing end game content more than once if there is no chance to improve your character. Maybe the champ system will fix this, as I'll be able to grind out champ points. I still would like the rare chance of getting elite loot. Even in PVP.

I think the devs need to take a step back from saying "crafters will always make the best gear." I mean it would be one thing if it was hard to level up crafting, but it's easy as pie. What do you guys do at end game when you already have your set of crafted gear as soon as you hit cap? RP in a tavern? I think that's cool once in a while, but I mostly play RPG's for character progression.

LonePirate wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

Eiregirl wrote: »

In trials you can find gear that is comparable to crafted gear and perhaps a tiny bit better for some players. For example the mage set and there are several others that can only be obtained at VR ranks from trials. If this is not good enough for you then to bad move on.

And you honestly don't see a problem with this?

You don't find it a bit odd that trials requiring 12 people, coordination, effort, skill, gold, and time give gear that is "comparable" to gear that can be had by sitting in front of a crafting station and hitting "R" a couple hundred times?

Most games, and life in general, are about risk versus reward. As it is now, the so-called end-game content has all the risk and none of the reward. After getting the achievements, there is little to no reason to continue to do the content.

If crafting in this game was something other than a brain dead distraction then I might see the point. Unfortunately, crafting takes absolutely no effort, no skill, no gold, and very little time.

Please! Not this old canard again.

Crafting takes considerably more time to create gear - especially if you don't have an upper level alt feeding it items to deconstruct. Crafting certainly takes more time (and/or gold) to acquire a full set of legendary gear with set bonuses that approximate the legendary gear and set bonuses received from clearing a trial.

A typical trial group can clear it in 15 minutes or less in order to receive a piece of legendary gear with a nice set bonus. Let's say you clear three trials a day over the course of 90 minutes each day for two weeks. You just spent 21 hours collecting 42 pieces of legendary gear (at a minimum) of which you have cobbled together eight pieces to receive bonuses from two sets. Let's not forget the jewelry that was picked up along the way which cannot be crafted.

Now how much time do you think is needed to push the crafting skills to reach the point where you only need 64 legendary mats to upgrade the gear to legendary? How much time is needed to collect those 64 mats from hirelings or deconstruction or refinement? How much time is needed to find the necessary traits on those eight items so you can obtain set bonuses that are comparable to the ones on the dropped trials gear? Or, how much gold is needed to purchase these items which can be broken down into how much time is needed to earn the gold to buy all of those things? The answer is a lot more time than that hypothetical 21 hours spent completing trials.

Completing a trial is the quick way to obtain legendary gear and set bonuses. Crafting is the slow, long game approach. The former is the hare while the latter is the tortoise in this race.

If I remember correctly, legendary gear doesn't drop frequently if not at all from the actual trial, it is obtained through the leader boards.