It occured to me today, mainly as part of a discussion involving the recent Something Awful article and the Gamasutra article which was discussed recently that something fundamental is being missed here. Why is it that insanely powerful equipment is dropped from "Epic" enemies? It screws with the balance of a game. Of course, removing the "uber loot" from these difficult mobiles would remove a lot of the reasons to kill them. However, think back to a game that came out many years ago: X-Wing. This particular space sim rewarded the players with ribbons for accomplishments. Such a system was used in the sequals, as well. TIE Fighter, for instance, made use of this in addition to a tattoo reward for certain things. Why, then, can't such a system of worthless but meaningful rewards be used? It solves many problems: item balance between uber loot and normal loot, still providing a sense of accomplishment, and could even allow other people to view a person's accomplishments. Any thoughts on this matter? -Greven [Edited by - Run_The_Shadows on February 25, 2006 10:49:37 PM]

I don't think there's much to gain by shifting the "meaninglessness" around; people will still "have" to grind to get the ribbons. If you think about it, ultimately, MMORPGs are completely meaningless. The only "reason" people cite for "needing" a better breastplate in World of Warcraft is so that they can have a fair shot at killing everyone else on the server, but you don't actually "get" anything for being the #1 player killer on your server: Blizzard isn't going to drive out to your house and throw you a party. It's still ultimately meaningless. Basically, in WoW, you grind to get the armor to get the meaningless titles, instead of just grinding to get the meaningless titles. The only difference is you would be basically pointing out the meaningless right to the player's face; it's questionable whether this would make anyone want to grind away at your game more than they would WoW.

I think that what many designers fight with is that what many see as a Sisyphusian grind, others see as rewarding. You see, instead of the boulder simply falling back down the hill, many gamers feel that with each level, they have reached a plateau, and are proud of their achievement. They prepare to grapple the next hill and reach the next plateau.

So the grind for loot isn't a grind at all to many.

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Original post by visage I think that what many designers fight with is that what many see as a Sisyphusian grind, others see as rewarding. You see, instead of the boulder simply falling back down the hill, many gamers feel that with each level, they have reached a plateau, and are proud of their achievement. They prepare to grapple the next hill and reach the next plateau. So the grind for loot isn't a grind at all to many.

Very true. Like some people I know who don't believe they've truly finished an RPG game until they've reached the max level, maxed out all their weapons and completed all quests, etc....of course, I'm not one of those, I only care about the story in the sense that I just want to see the end ASAP, so everything else becomes a grind...

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Original post by Evil_Greven Why is it that insanely powerful equipment is dropped from "Epic" enemies? It screws with the balance of a game.

Well, it's a positive feedback system. If you killed an epic enemy, you must be pretty hardcore. The gain of the epic loot makes you more hardcore, so you kill more epic enemies, and so on. It destabilises the game in your favour, which is in theory desirable in a game with terminating conditions (i.e. so that you win).

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Why, then, can't such a system of worthless but meaningful rewards be used? It solves many problems: item balance between uber loot and normal loot, still providing a sense of accomplishment, and could even allow other people to view a person's accomplishments.

I'd like to see names used as achievement awards. So I have my character "Aziraphael," and with him I complete the quest to venture deep into the dungeons of Danthael and kill the evil wizard Mirithon. NPCs now sometimes greet me as "Aziraphael, slayer of Mirithon" or "Aziraphael, hammer of Danthael" and generally act more respectfully towards me. Very occasionally, like when arriving at the King's court, all my titles and reputation get read out.

If the hardest to beat enemies don't give the best loot, who will? You shouldn't just find the +50 Flaming Sword of Uber-1337ness lying by the side of the road. You should have to kill someone powerful to get it, someone who would be powerful enough to have it in the first place and to have kept it away from other challengers. The best rewards are the hardest to get is a rule that makes sense and is true in life.

I certainly think that awards and such are nice as well, but they shouldn't replace loot. I would like to see more games award you titles and such and have these and the fame of the epic enemies you have killed change how NPCs treat you.

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Original post by makeshiftwings The only "reason" people cite for "needing" a better breastplate in World of Warcraft is so that they can have a fair shot at killing everyone else on the server, but you don't actually "get" anything for being the #1 player killer on your server: Blizzard isn't going to drive out to your house and throw you a party.

Here's the thing -- I don't come from WoW. Sure, I played it for a couple of weeks in Beta and a few days in Retail, but that was the extent of it. Instead, I played Dark Age of Camelot for years. What destroyed that game? Epic Loot and Epic Abilities, from an expansion titled "Trials of Atlantis." Suddenly, people who had the time or guild strength became absurdly powerful. A group of 8, on many occasions, wiped out a group of 40, simply due to these powerful items and abilities (and, one could argue, the cheat program radar but I digress).

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Original post by visage I think that what many designers fight with is that what many see as a Sisyphusian grind, others see as rewarding. You see, instead of the boulder simply falling back down the hill, many gamers feel that with each level, they have reached a plateau, and are proud of their achievement. They prepare to grapple the next hill and reach the next plateau. So the grind for loot isn't a grind at all to many.

Are you so sure? Thousands of people left Dark Age of Camelot, and the vast majority stated that the imbalance created by the Trials of Atlantis expansion had destroyed the game. The company even went so far as to put out a survey, and launched three servers that had the expansion disabled! Of course, in my opinion it was too little too late, and I think that people had ceased to care mostly by that point. However, those servers became the most popular for quite awhile, although I'm unsure if they still remain so.

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Original post by superpig Well, it's a positive feedback system. If you killed an epic enemy, you must be pretty hardcore. The gain of the epic loot makes you more hardcore, so you kill more epic enemies, and so on. It destabilises the game in your favour, which is in theory desirable in a game with terminating conditions (i.e. so that you win).

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear in referring this to a game where you could play with (or against) other players. However, the destabilization is the main issue I'm concerned with, not the grind (which does contribute to it, as a stumbling block to *other* players).

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Original post by superpig I'd like to see names used as achievement awards. So I have my character "Aziraphael," and with him I complete the quest to venture deep into the dungeons of Danthael and kill the evil wizard Mirithon. NPCs now sometimes greet me as "Aziraphael, slayer of Mirithon" or "Aziraphael, hammer of Danthael" and generally act more respectfully towards me. Very occasionally, like when arriving at the King's court, all my titles and reputation get read out.

That's an excellent idea, and one that I've seen put to some use. Check out City of Heroes and City of Villains, which both feature these. Civilians will talk about what you've done (usually just recent stuff) and you have titles to pick from (as well as badges).

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Original post by martiandragon If the hardest to beat enemies don't give the best loot, who will? You shouldn't just find the +50 Flaming Sword of Uber-1337ness lying by the side of the road. You should have to kill someone powerful to get it, someone who would be powerful enough to have it in the first place and to have kept it away from other challengers. The best rewards are the hardest to get is a rule that makes sense and is true in life.

Excaliber was kind of just lying on the side of the road. Of course, that was a rather unique circumstance. So let's say you have to kill something powerful to get Excaliber instead. It's so powerful that you need a group of dozens of players to defeat it.

Who gets Excaliber?
Are that player's enemies just SOL then and have no hope of fighting back?

Also, real life doesn't usually make a fun game, and even still that rule isn't nearly accurate.

-Greven

Keep in mind that any grind that's fun isn't a grind. If you can keep your combat engine dynamic enough that grinding isn't "perform these skills in this sequence to optimize damage per second" (or at least, so that players have to re-perform the optimization each time they encounter an enemy, even if they've fought them a thousand times before), then the player stays engaged in the game. The long-term goals are still there, whether they be achieving a new level or finding a new piece of equipment or earning a new title or whatever else. But the gameplay should be the reason why people are playing the game. The whole "defeat Epic Monster X to receive Epic Equipment Set Y" thing is just encouraging people to more finely-tune the optimizations they've already made. It's more of the same, just taken to a higher level. The equipment is thrown in there as the carrot to encourage people to do it. Now, there's nothing wrong with rewards that change gameplay in exchange for skilled play of the game, but you need to be careful in how you use them. Simply making an item "uber" (i.e. given a choice between it and any other item in its class, you always choose it) is too simplistic. Ideally you want the rewards to open up new ways of playing the game - new abilities, special attack effects, and so on, that aren't necessarily stronger than other abilities, but are different, suitable for new situations. You can thereby increase the complexity of gameplay, which complexity is why your players should be playing the game in the first place.

Well, I think you have to make a distinction between "epic items on epic monsters" and "ruining game balance so bad that people will quit". I haven't played DAoC, but that sounds more like they made a bad marketing decision during design (ie, let's make this expansion have items so good, that you HAVE to buy it or you'll be worthless), not an effect of "harder monsters mean better loot" in general. It sounds like if they had released the expansion with all the good items just sitting in a room when you first log in, it still would have thrown off the balance between the haves and have-nots.

The biggest problem with 'uber loot' is when the loot *far* surpasses the loot that you would otherwise get from the non-uber mobs. Example:

Long sword from Gnoll_12:

Damage: 12
Speed: 30
Strength: +5
Dexterity: +3

Long sword from Uber_Gnoll_01:

Damage: 18
Speed: 22
Strength: +12
Dexterity: +16

This example is an example of excessive uber-ness. This is what happens in EQ post-Vellious for the mostpart. Items would give you a good bonus on 1-5 stats, but once you hit Luclin, it became the game of "Let's stick the highest everything on the same item, so it's a no-brainer what piece to wear". No reason to carry around "resist gear" and "tanking gear" and so forth, your best gear is the best for everything.

The key to making uber gear not completely imbalance your game is to make the best for different roles all be different pieces. The best protecting against physical damage shouldn't be the best against magic and it shouldn't be the pieces that give you the biggest bonus to your health. Make the ubers go after 3 to 5 different pieces, each good for a different situation. Even then, I'd recommend making each piece only moderately better than it's predecessor and not necessarily in every way.

As with everything, balance and moderation is a key and making sure that there is a good reason to have that moderation. Some games are good at it, others horribly mess it up (10 raiders can stomp all over 20-30 non-raiders in WoW and the game is not even 18 months old yet). Balancing uber critters and loot against non-uber ones is a difficult task. Doing it without creating a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots is hard to do while maintaining a viable risk/reward ratio. Sometimes the sense of accomplishment is enough, but commonly it's not.