(04-25-2014, 06:58 PM)synaesthetic Wrote: You're talking about incomparables, but that sort of system takes a lot of work to keep fair and balanced. It's easier to just make the numbers go higher.
Well, fair and balanced is one of those things we can play with. Â In games where PVP forms the vast majority of player interaction, it can be more of an issue. Â In a game like Monster Hunter where player performance and adaptability is always more important than specific role-specialization, it can be a lot easier. Â I suppose it's just easier for MMO games to extend their lifetimes and make money (either by P2W or subscription) by making sure you're always having to get new stuff you don't have yet. Â I'm not sure why they don't just give you ways to boost your "stats" in a more organic way than by giving you a tiered equipment system.
More to the point, as you said, it's a complete waste when you've spent the better part of a year putting together the graphics for your expansion pack and then never use it again. Â For all intents and purposes, it's a very expensive misappropriation of resources. Â Blizzard is constantly having to field hate coming out of the blue for their release schedule, because even considering the ridiculously vast amount of content they've accumulated over the years, so much of it is one-and-done. Â Considering how fast you can level now, people leveling now will probably see less than half of the Burning Crusade's Outland world, much less all the raids that used to make up the endgame. Â All that work to essentially be cast by the wayside.
I mean, granted, at least it has pretty frequent content releases, but it does feel like a lot of effort for its somewhat disposable content, like taking the time to beautifully hand-craft and individually paint paper cups for a water cooler.
There are a lot of ways around that, most of which might involve you having to run from the big bad monsters a lot if you set them to patrol low level areas. Â I still remember one of the funniest moments of my life being my first time in the Konschtat Highlands with my brothers in FFXI. Â We ran into a particularly large ram, but it didn't seem to be bothering us. Â So my brother walked right up in front of it and was one-shot. Â Steelfleece Baldarich chased the other two of us all the way to the Dem Crag. Â I also recall my first time in Un'Goro crater being chased by a Tyrant Devilsaur in circles until I found the way out on my hunter. Â I also remember being one-shot a few times when I first started BC by wandering Fel Reavers.
There's no reason you shouldn't make areas useful and accessible from level one to max level besides how much games coddle us. Â I guess it isn't seemly for them to make us run from fights we can't win and feel like we've gained something when we don't die (one of the other reasons I feel like game-death is way too trivial is that it completely ruins the element of danger and makes death a mild to moderate annoyance that essentially costs money).
Again, lots of ways to get out of the cycle, but increasing stat numbers on gear has been around almost as long as the RPG concept has been. Â I could come up with about a half-dozen viable ways out of it that would waste less time modeling gear (not to mention that WoW has now been around so long and inflated the numbers so large that they're instituting a stat squish so that the game can recognize all the numbers). Â Developers just don't; they don't need more than a gimmick or two to say they aren't like any other game out there and then they can just do what everyone else is doing.