The Daily Grind: What's your favorite item-quality system?

@LeBouc
I personally tend to put players that brag too much about their gear, or that belittle another player's gear, in my ignore list. Also, given the fact most MMOs only give the best gear for large group content - content in which it's quite possible to carry a terrible player - I don't see good gear in MMOs as any indication of skill.

I play to have fun, not to participate in an EPEEN contest. In fact, in WoW I prefer to transmog my gear to look like matched but low level gear, and in WotLK I use cosmetic appearances based mostly on simple (usually low level) matching items.

It's one of the most immersion breaking things I find in computer RPGs. The character, specially it's power level, is often more defined by it's gear than by it's abilities. In this regard, I often find action games better at immersing me - sure, there might not be many ways to customize the character, but at least he is usually more defined by what he is than what gear he is using.

@DarkWalker ^ Basically this. I find it ridiculous that my avatar's strength comes from some over-the-top items rather than personal growth in power and expertise (skills aside, of course).

Also a deal breaker: 30-foot bosses that stomp my avatar's face for less than his total HP. Did I miss something here? How does that even work? Meh.

@HackJack Well said!

@Saker @HackJack @Darkwalker
Well said, guys! I'm with you that gear is overemphasized in many MMOs.

However, if we look back to Age of Conan at launch, they tried to de-emphasize gear. Gear bonuses were trivial compared to the character's own progression, and I thought that was ideal. Unfortunately all the "gearscore" type players complained so much that Funcom switched it over to a normal gear-driven system.

So the problem is tons of players want this, and we are in the minority.

@HackJack
But isn't that pretty much every game ever?
Sure, sometimes they may not be giant... but they may be shooting you in the face. Or stabbing you in the face. Or something that would be realistically fatal.
Like, ya know, dragons breathing fire on you.

@HackJack

Yea, I mean in any game, your character is going to survive unrealistic situations.

Dragon bites, engulfed in flames, multiple bullet wounds, slash wounds.

The fact is a modern FPS is much closer (but usually still errs on the side of long life) in terms of your characters ability to absorb damage. But most MMO gamers dont want to have their bossfight end after the first shot, slash, or whatever.

@DarkWalker

An awesome suggestion, which I would agree with

Sadly, it leads to a money sink for the devs. They have to make the newer content have new stuff, so people have to do the new stuff, which often makes them subscribe longer in order to learn the new content, and then perfect it long enough to gear everyone out.

Of course, if the devs actually did funnel their work into providing loads of content, even if that content didn't offer advantages to the current "maximum", I think people would stay subscribed anyway. It would mean groups could decide what content they wanted to run, instead of being forced to do whatever was "best".

You know, as opposed to the current model of subscribing for a month, doing the newest content to death, and then letting their sub lapse until the next update.

@Wisdomandlore

Good post. I agree and also miss how gear worked in D&D. It was simple, yet extremely effective. Sadly, until MMOs get off their skinner-box gear-grind design, we'll not see any thing different that the Diablo system.

@Wisdomandlore

a friend explained something to me yesterday during a discussion about League of Legends that i think fits here.

see i just cannot enjoy LoL, it's BORING. i would much rather play Planetside and run around killing things, and he said "yeah, LoL is all about numbers" and min/maxing

that's when it hit me... WHAT is the target audience for MMO's? NERDS! and who love numbers more than boob? (ok, that's not true) NERDS!

i can barely count to 9 so it's no wonder i don't like LoL and i don't raid.

so i think the gear/stat race is a logical and inevitable outcome of combining two loves of the core MMO audience: dragons and math.

and TERA will be dragons, math, AND boob.

@Blyn

Numbers on LoL? I never really noticed it...but then again, I only play LoL every once in a while, so its less about numbers for me and more about my pint sized dark wizard trying to be evil XD.

I do agree though, Planet Side is lots of fun.

@Wisdomandlore Oh man oh man.

That's something I've really been missing from most of these modern MMOs. Sure, many of them do use a set prefix and suffix system, but as you said, it doesn't really mean anything other than incremental upgrades.

I think that 'Ranger's Halfboots of Alacrity' should make you run slightly faster! Instead though it's usually a plus to Dex, which though useful is whole-heartedly disappointing.

@Blyn Dragons, Math, Boob.... this really needs to be a Venn Diagram.

Think I'll make one.

@Petter M The crafting is a little different, but FE does this as well. Basically you can only repair items and weapons a finite number of times. However when a weapon does break for the final time, you can either cannibalize it for parts or use it as the base architecture for another weapon.

It's a good crafting game. It's where I go for my fix when other MMOs don't deliver.

@(Unverified)
7+ years and millions of subscribers, yeah totally doesn't work. LoL.