Thinly veiled power creep rant

#1

Daily reminder that new BIS untiered items from every dungeon are perfectly fine, but adding new tiered items that increase DPS by 2.5 (or 5 with maxed atk) are “too overpowered” to introduce and will ruin the game if we ever have stronger gear than wine cellar tops.

#2

Eh… that’s perfectly normal. Given at some point endgame dungeons should give stronger equipment, and maybe some years in the future we’ll get the fabled T14 Weapons, so yeah.

I mean you didn’t really expect we would be stuck with T12 Weapons forever, right?

#3

I probably could have worded the title better.
I don’t mind power creep. In fact, I’m strongly in favour of new tiered weapons. If it were up to me we’d already be at least at tier 18 or so. Tiers being stuck at 12 for weapons and 13 for armour is an absolute travesty considering how common they are: they’re worthless, new bosses give nothing to grind for except their whites (and potions if you’re still maxing, I guess) and there’s zero sense of progression if you can reliably kill Oryx 2 or any of the other, what, 7? bosses that all drop top tier equipment.
What I dislike is that tiered equipment upgrades get consistently shot down because it would be “too strong” while it’s absolutely okay for weapons like pixie, void bow, parasite scepter and the bee quiver to completely outclass tiered weapons. Why the double standard?
If the devs have their heart set on power creeping the game, at least be honest about it and do it in a way that benefits the game instead of selling new boxes or adding 1/300 drops to new dungeons. I really want to care about loot again.

#4

You know, I could never put my finger on it myself, but this is exactly what’s wrong with the loot progression in the game. Aside from the super rare whites/ST’s, there’s no sense of achievement past WC Tops (which take maybe an hour to get if you play normally). No “enchanting” weapons, or gaining experience on certain weapons, not even any better tiered weapons. Just more dungeons with more pots, more whites, and an endless grind that usually feels meaningless. With a game like RotMG, power creep needs to exist in some sense, because things need to advance; enemies need to be stronger, and so should the players. But IDK, that’s just my two cents.

#5

Here’s the thing though: the game is still permadeath.

The problem isn’t whether you can loot something or not. RNGesus willing, you could get your first Jugg within your first month of playing.

The problem is whether you can actually use the item without instantly losing it and whether you have spares in case you do bite the dust.

(which is why selling tops in Nexus is such a scummy business practice)

I think a good portion of that is just a natural consequence of reaching endgame.

In any loot-based game, eventually you reach a point where you just stop picking up 99.9% of your drops because what you have is already better. Even when there are game mechanics like crafting or selling weapons, it’s just a waste of time to bother picking up and processing every single item you get.

I can find several other arguments against it:

-they’re boring

-every time you make a new tier, you have to make a new item in every category for it

-for Rings specifically, there’s a limit to how many tiers you can add before they become ridiculous

-for Armors, there’s also a limit to how far up you can go before you break the balance of the game (because you’d either have Leathers and Robes that give enough Def to tank on non-tanking classes or you’d have Leathers and Robes with so many other stat bonuses that they’d become OP as shit)

-for Abilities this is also true (imagine a Seal that gives +300 max Hp every time you use it, or a Cloak that lasts for 15 seconds)

-where do you make them drop? do you just keep making more ridiculous endgame dungeons to drop them? do you change loot distribution so that Limon drops old WC tops and Oryx drops t20 stuff?

-powercreep is a bigger problem in a game that’s at least supposed to be hard and dodge-centric. If you powercreep too hard, you eventually get to a point where you don’t have to dodge or think about anything and it’s just a contest of who can get the highest numbers.

#6

incorrect, I personally want my t10 HP ring with %8 fame bonus

#7

you eventually get to a point where you don’t have to dodge or think about anything and it’s just a contest of who can get the highest numbers.

imo this has already happened for pretty much every dungeon in the game apart from lost halls. Shatters were once seen as end game content, now they’re seen as braindead…
Off track from the post slightly but I’d love to see a dungeon boss that starts off with everyone getting a 60s sick/pet statis combo then forcing everyone to dodge skillfully in order to survive

#8

That’s a separate problem, and one that affects LH as well: the fact that every endgame dungeon leads to people clumping up together into a big DPS blob with no place left for individual actions and skill.

#9

The ice cave drops better loot than oryx other than the uts XD

#10

ftfy.

#11

My main issue with RotMG’s loot progression isn’t the lack of tiers or the insane upper hand UTs and STs have over everything else, those are results of the problem but they are not the culprit. I believe that fault can be found with how progression grinds to a halt almost immediately after you 8/8.Maxing stats is such a perfect progression system for a permadeath game since you’re constantly making small leaps of progress with a clear endgoal in sight. Hunting for tiers or UTs/STs on the other hand is the antithesis of a good permadeath progression mechanic. It is fine for rare sidegrades to exist as getting an interesting UT/ST can keep us playing once we’re at endgame but once all you have to do is grind minuscule item drops from content you’ve ran hundreds upon hundreds of times the line between what is acceptable and not in a permadeath game really blurs. It baffles me how RotMG is lauded as having a quick progression system while simultaneously having the worst, most stonewall progression at the same time.

The worst offender in the game is of course the T13 weapons/T14 armours from Lost Halls. There is absolutely 0 things a player can do to achieve these items beyond just running more Halls. They are a pure RNG check, and deliver such minuscule increases in power that they’re barely perceptible even. This is egregiously insulting for a permadeath game, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth every time I slog through a Halls and don’t pass the RNG stonewall. This is such a unsatisfying loot distribution method as there’s no buildup, no noticeable progression. I’ve ran hundreds of halls and I feel no closer to a T13 weapon than I did on halls #1.

There are multiple solutions to fix both of these problems, the lack of progression beyond 8/8 and the extreme rarity of the highest tiers. The best solutions offer guaranteed avenues of progression along with variety in content that can be ran to attain said progression. I personally believe that items should gain enchantments the more fame you achieve while using them and that more endgame content should be developed that drops T13 weapons/T14 armours and perhaps even T7 abilities. (Oryx 3?)

Whatever happens with RotMG it really needs to happen quickly. We’re at a turning point in the game’s life and whatever happens next with Unity will determine the game’s future. The game has stagnated long enough and needs new economies, content, and progression sorely. Perhaps the seasonal campaigns DECA has been talking about will be enough. If it’s anything like Path of Exile’s seasons then it will be very interesting. PoE, for reference, has main servers and seasonal servers. On the seasonal servers the economy resets every few weeks and a new campaign begins, starting everyone at lvl 1 and introducing new items and mechanics. Players who rank well receive benefits on the main server at the end of the season. It’s like a perpetual cycle of interesting gameplay since you always have progress to achieve and it ties back to the main game. I’ve never actually played PoE so I’m sorry if I butchered the explanation.

#12

This is a very good point. Getting loot in this game is like rolling dice, which is the case with most MMO’s. But, in other MMO’s I’ve played, getting the good items is either blocked by a super hard fight, where most won’t make it to the end, so only the skilled players can get the nice shit (clearly not possible in RotMG’s current state), or where your efforts are actually worth something.

IMO, a very much needed change is the soulbound system rewarding good play. I think it’s fine that you don’t need to deal an absurd amount of damage just to compete, since noobs won’t get a lick of damage in, whilst super decked out 8/8 warriors will disintegrate lower tier bosses in 5 seconds (even on that note, the threshold is extremely low in its current state). But simultaneously, we need to encourage people to deal damage. I propose that the more damage you deal, the higher chances for loot you have, to a point where if you deal enough damage, you’re basically guaranteed something relatively valuable.

#13

-people have even less incentive to use support classes like Priest or Mystic since now it directly lowers their chances of getting loot;

-dragging and being an asshole are now encouraged, since “less people=more loot” becomes true in that scenario;

-key openers have even less of an incentive to open in public or for big groups, meaning the gap between whales and normal players will increase even further;

-new players are now encouraged to buy tops and STs from the Nexus as it will help them maximize their chances to get loot.

Congratulations, you just made this game exponentially worse.

#14

This post is getting a lot of hearts so it’s time to shoot it down:

They’re the solid foundation for damage/defence. However, even with tiered progression you’re not limited to just making the exact same item just slightly stronger in every tier: consider the obsidian dagger and its +50% fire rate, or the Heavy Crossbow sitting between the Double Bow and Golden Bow with its 1 shot and longer range.

Yes you do. That’s the whole point of tiered items.

Again, there’s no reason why they have to follow the current progression. For example if you wanted to make tiered rings up to say, tier 10 you could have:
-Tier 6: (UBHP) +180
-Tier 7: +185
-Tier 8: +190
-Tier 9: +195
-Tier 10: +200
There are more incremental upgrades to attain and the stats don’t blow out like you’re doomsaying. That’s 20 more HP than current realm for 4 more tiers of rings to distribute among difficult content.

My paragraph above about ring tiers applies here as well. Even if progression doesn’t get changed (it would, probably) above the current tiers, with 10 tiers of armour you’re still only gaining 5 def on a leather class (47 -> 53 def max) and a few dex. With melee you do become a lot more tanky, especially factoring in bonuses from higher tiered abilities. However, I’d argue defence as a stat is not in a very good place right now: high end dungeons hit hard enough that the difference between 60 and 80 defence is not as much as you’d think, and a lot of enemies (too many, I’d say) deal armour piercing damage. Playing Heroic UDL on a maxed warrior was incredibly difficult, for example.

Extreme examples to try to discredit me. You’d easily be in the high teen ability tiers at that point, which is not something that would come for many years, if ever

Just keep making more dungeons that are slightly harder. Right now the risk/reward for current Halls tier equipment is batfuck insane, to be vulgar about it. There’s no reason for such small power increases to be gated behind a dungeon that’s built from the ground up to be impossible to complete in pubs and is a slog even if you organise. Heroic dungeons would be a good place to start placing new tiers, considering Deca are hell-bent on making heroic dungeons a thing. The point is that there’s no end of places to make higher tiers of equipment to drop, especially if dungeons continue to get harder and want something to drop besides potions (which are worthless to a maxed character) and whites (which are worthless both economically and to people who don’t play the classes).
Oryx himself is already power crept into irrelevance. Even with his new phases he’s not that hard and many dungeon bosses are already harder. Eventually maybe an Oryx 3 is called for. Oryx 2 didn’t used to exist: “old tops” are called that for a reason.

We’ve largely been in this state for a while now, and it only keeps getting worse with HP scaling dungeon enemies. That’s a rant for another day. There are ways to still keep dungeons dangerous even if you’re wandering around in lots of defence: armour piercing bullets, armour break, pet stasis, sick, high damage bullets in general. All of them are abundant, all of them will still be abundant. I’ve witnessed dozens of players on maxed, ST’d, lost halls tops’d characters get slaughtered in seconds doing Thicket’s third boss. Do you really think an extra 5-10 defence is going to save them?

That’s all for now.

#15

Everything said in this thread is trivial until they patch out hacks completely or atleast make it harder for them to put it public. I’m going to pull numbers out of my ass but I’d say atleast 50% is using autonexus

#16

Then what would be the difference between a higher-tier item and an untiered one?

If you reject that definition of tiered compared to untiered then you’re going to have to propose a new one, or else you’re just going to make everything way more confusing than it should be.

What you’re looking at isn’t just adding new tiers, it’s a complete streamlining of all tiered items in the game.

And that’s a problem because instead of addressing specific imbalances between classes or playstyles, it just increases the power level across the board.

There’s a time for that and I’m not sure we’re in the right place yet.

Then you’re going to hit the opposite problem of powercreep: making shit that’s too weak for the difficulty of the content that drops it, meaning nobody will bother farming it aside from the Furry Train Brigade because throwing a million alts into the meat grinder for 5 extra Hp is just not a time investment normal people would be willing to make.

If you already know the problem with gating higher tiers behind super hard content and the problems endgame content in general has in RotMG, then why do you want more of it? Shouldn’t the priority be to fix the already existing shit instead of flooding the players with more shit?

Kinda off-topic but every time I’ve seen veteran players talk about old tops, they’ve said that the name is inaccurate. So there’s a very real possibility the real reason they’re called that is because newbies retroactively called them that and used it so much that it stuck, not because they actually used to be the top tiers before WC.

… which is already enough to make Nil armor completely obsolete.

We’re not talking about giving melees even more Def, we’re talking about what happens when you give non-melee classes too much Def.

That would be a valid point if we were in a standard MMORPG where everything is gated by level requirements and you can actually tailor content to specific levels of players.

But since we aren’t, it isn’t.

All you would accomplish with this is make the game unplayable because either everything is designed with only endgame players in mind or endgame players can just steamroll everything that’s not super hard endgame.

#17

Well, lets disentangle things, there’s nothing saying that new tiers have to be continually placed at the top.

If devs decided that 20 tiers of weapon were wanted, they could keep the top and bottom tiers at exactly the same DMG as now, and move up the 20 tiers incrementally, just in smaller increments than now. Similar with other gear.

A chain that perhaps could be broken is the way that every higher tier also gains a pp of fame. That IMO contributes to the inertia against new tiers because that power creep of fame% is seen as a bad thing because it has consequences of devaluing rare/untiered items or requiring their fame% to be raised in parallel. But there’s nothing saying two adjacent tiers couldn’t have the same %, so T8&T9=1%, T10/11=2% etc to allow more tiers without power creeping the fame%.

But a fundamental problem in the game is the “worthlessness” of much of the loot. This is because we simply don’t die enough compared to how much tradeable loot we accumulate. If we want bags to have value, that flows from lower survivability or lower loot rates, or increased ability to trade. With the usual prescription (fix cheat clienters, reduce pet heal, fix duping, unsoulbind).

#18

Wouldn’t make a difference if you don’t change the way the game is structured.

Right now, godlands drop t6 weapons in public bags like candy, so there’s no good reason to bother farming for better weapons slowly from lowlands to highlands rather than directly tp to godlands and grab the good stuff.

Therefore, if you change the game so that there are a lot more tiers, every tier you implement before that level is effectively dead weight.

On the other side of the spectrum, any higher tier you try to implement will effectively be dead weight as well, because everyone will always default back to the best tier that can actually be farmed in a reasonable amount of time without losing dozens of characters in the process.

#19

I don’t know where you’re pulling these conclusions out of, because changing this system in such a manner is not as bad as you’re making it out to be. Also, everything I say doesn’t include LH, because the loot system for that dungeon is guaranteed if you reach SB, whereas in every other dungeon in the game, you don’t know for sure.

All I said was that the more damage you deal, the more chance for loot you have. Obviously, there’d be a cap as to when this increased chance of loot would stop. But, as of right now, SB for most lower end bosses (even some higher end ones and chests require so little SB basically anybody could get loot on them) is no more than a couple hundred. With a class like the Priest, with undeniably the lowest DPS in the game, still being able to dish out 1000+ DPS with a normal set, does increasing that couple hundred matter?

Notice something else: if a 8/8 Wizard and a 0/8 Priest are fighting a boss, in my scenario, the SB would be noticeably higher, but still relatively reasonable to reach. However, if both classes hit SB, the Priest’s chances for loot don’t go down, but the Wizard’s simply go up.

“But then there’s too much easy loot going around!!!”. Which is why it would be a balancing act if you could find the right threshold for SB to make it reasonable to reach, whilst also making it high enough so that you can actually feel your loot become more consistent the more work you put in. If this new system were to exist, SB overall would need to go up, or else there’s too much extra stuff going around.

One thing I will give you and is something I should clarify is that I am mainly talking about Pot drop chances. SB for everything should increase, even by a tiny bit, but the increased loot would mainly (even only) affect the Pots dropped. Whites and ST’s are mainly gambles and that’s sort of the appeal to them, despite how unfair they may seem at times.

O2 has a damage calculator in place, and I think it would be very nice if you dealt top damage, you were guaranteed something. That doesn’t seem broken to me; you go in through more of the phases, deal more damage, and get more loot, whilst everybody else gets the same loot, and the very small minority of players who can’t reach SB wouldn’t get as much loot (mainly pots, since I think that White’s and ST’s SB shouldn’t increase by too much, still giving lower end players hope for a cool UT/ST).

I don’t see how this would discourage Key Openers to pop stuff either, since most of the time, Key Openers pop out of their own volition and kindness for others, and popping just means other people get to help you clear the dungeon faster, and everyone gets a chance at good loot. The popper could still very easily reach SB if they had a character that wasn’t unmaxed and with really garbage tier loot in a Shatters or something (there’s a reason endgame is called endgame). And as for Tops and ST’s in the nexus, I think that they should just be removed in general. I never have agreed with them and they can ruin any sense of achievement (despite how minute it may be at this point) in this game if you can just reach the top stuff with money.

Again, even if you fundamentally disagree with my system, I think a complete gamble for loot is worse than my scenario. At the end of the day, the increased chance for loot and increased SB could be slight and more of a side bonus rather than something people would focus on so heavily that they ruin the experience for others via dragging.

#20

Almost every dungeon has guaranteed drops. What are you talking about???

… which, again, is going to incentivize people to play Wizard more than Priest, and, more generally, to play DPS classes rather than supports.

Why would you make it easier for already maxed characters to get pots in a group? They’re already powerful enough to go solo farm almost any dungeon that can drop whatever stat pot they might need.

Then people would use their incs a lot less liberally and keep them for smaller WCs where they’ll have an easier time MVPing, or we’d come back to the days when people would always waste a ton of time before opening just so they could get as many people as possible to nexus before they finally pop their inc.

Or they want someone else to do the dirty work so they’ll have an easier time getting loot themselves.

They could remove tops to try and gain some goodwill, especially if the revenue they get from those sales is as insignificant as I suspect it is.

STs though? sadly, I doubt it. STs are a big part of what makes Mystery Boxes attractive. There’s just no way they’d get rid of what is likely a big part of their consistent income.

Here’s the thing: if your system only works for pots, then it’s completely unnecessary because anyone can solo farm godlands and godlands dungeons until they can 6/8 the entire known universe.

If it works for everything else, then you might as well remove any class that’s not Wizard, Warrior and Archer from the game because nobody’s going to bother playing a class with inferior drop rates in a game where the main gameplay loop is massively loot-centric.