Meant to reply to this earlier.
snailish wrote:
What if they just made rank 4 of a spell the group content level version for the start of the next expac?*
So you buy the expac, zone in the first new zone they start the story with (so it is locked behind the paywall of buying the new expac) and get buffed spell-wise to start tackling the newer content which could then be tuned a wee bit harder off the hop. Then you'd go hunting/working for you levels and new spell upgrades.
So you're suggesting (for example) that when TDS came out, there should have been vendors selling rank IV versions of the 96-100 spells, which are roughly equivalent to the rank II spells in the 101-105 range? Or am I totally missing what you're saying? I'd see how that could work at making content easier to dig into initially, but I see a couple problems (again, assuming I'm interpreting this correctly):
1. This wont work for spells that have hard level effect caps. So mezes, pacifies, stuns, etc wouldn't work properly (unless you made the rank IV spell actually have the higher caps of the equivalent rank II spells, just five levels earlier.
2. If the latter case is true (or even if not for the spells not level capped), then what's the incentive for bothering with solo/group content in the new expansion at all? If my rank IV level 97 spell that I can buy from a vendor is just as powerful as the replacement rank II level 102 spell, why would I ever bother to obtain it? You've now made it so that the *only* upgrades are rankIII spells in current content, just making the problem of raid vs non-raid worse.
Unless I'm totally missing something?
Quote:
*You might have to do this 2 expacs back, depends on how they move forward with the level increases and such. Yes this would remove the incentive of doing older content for rank III's, but it would buff up behind the content people to do the raids and get the older expac gear and progression done?
It would remove the incentive for older content at all. Every 5 levels, I'll just buy the new stuff, and I'm fully equipped with group level spells (gear too?) for the next 5 levels. Some people actually do enjoy working their way up through that content. So great solution for power leveled alts, not so great at all for folks actually playing the game. Now, to be fair the heroic character bit sorta breaks that model anyway (does it give you rank II spells and equivalent gear? Didn't really pay attention). But that still leaves 20 levels of play where the player has to spend time and effort working on their gear and spells. This would effectively make all characters HCs, just requiring one to have to level the last 20 levels (but nothing else).
Again, unless I'm missing something.
Sippin wrote:
The same way they nerf and un-nerf classes depending on their perception of class balances, and almost always over-compensating, thereby generating a new group of players who bemoan the fact that their class is now being treated unfairly.
Yeah. People complain bitterly about that stuff though. Doing this intentionally may not be the best idea. I get that you're trying to come up with ideas to make the game better and appeal to more players, but if you do this sort of thing wrong, you can cost yourself players instead.
Quote:
Complaining about aspects of the game is a time-honored tradition in all MMO's; heck I think most players would rage-quit if they did NOT have something to gripe about. So I vote that DBG gives it a shot and inserts quests and tradeskill combines which provide raid-level loot to the non-raider!
Well. I agree with the first (although at least some of those who've threatened to quit must have actually gone through with it over time, given the drop off in players over time). Honestly though, and I kinda meant to mention this earlier, didn't they already do just that at some point? I could have sworn that there was a trade skill revamp somewhere along the way which actually made trade skill made gear better than the raid gear at the time. I want to say like just post POP or somewhere around there (GOD, OOW, DoDH? No clue). I don't do tradeskills, so I don't recall specifics. I do recall a lot of people complaining that they'd made the crafted armors too powerful relative to raid loot though. Something they "fixed" in the next expansion (basically didn't scale up that system to match as levels increased, and let it die on the vine).
I honestly think they did already try this (or something very similar), got a massive negative reaction, and never did it again. Assuming I'm remembering correctly (and it's entirely possible I'm not), then this would tell us exactly what the "harm" is in doing this. Heck. It's entirely possible that this happened right around the same time that the mass exodus of players from the game occurred (not that that whole period of dull drab expansions wasn't a good enough reason anyway, but still).
Quote:
Like they listen to me, of course.
/walks off with the game ball
/pokes game ball with a stick and deflates it. Muahahah!
Edited, Mar 8th 2016 7:46pm by gbaji