I'm all about casual gamers and casual gaming but honestly, you really expect to get the same reward as the hardcore players?

Isn't that a bit unrealistic?

Here's a question for you:

Hardcore raiders get the best gear because they do the most difficult and hardcore content: the raids.

If you are a solo player who doesn't do raids, why do you need the same gear as someone who raids?

You don't. Oh, I get it. You just FEEL inferior.

Well, there is NOTHING in the game you can't solo that you are suppose to be able to solo with the best gear available from soloing.

HINT: If you don't raid, you don't need raid gear to do anything.

There is no group dungeon content you can't complete in a group while only having group dungeon-level gear.

There is no solo content you can't solo complete while only have solo-level gear.

Leave the e-peen at home and open your eyes man.

The only people who "need" the best, highest level, most uber epic gear are those who are doing the most difficult content.

In terms of PvP, well, I don't think PvP can ever be "balanced" completely in a level/gear based MMORPG.

Beating a dead horse, you are.

I agree with you. But, if there is not more items to get for solo players, why should they even keep on playing?

In all the discussions I have seen about this topic, I have NEVER and I truly mean NEVER seen a poster say that the reason solo and small group players don't deserve the same gear as hardcore raiders is because the solo and small group players don't need the same level of gear because the content they are doing doesn't require it.

I see now, it's all about greed and wanting something you don't have, and feeling like you are inferior and not actually about the game mechanics and systems at all.

Originally posted by Zoulz

I agree with you. But, if there is not more items to get for solo players, why should they even keep on playing?

In a game as large as something like say World of Warcraft I garauntee you that there are VERY few players who have accomplished everything and gotten everything they could possible get from solo play.

By the time they did, they'd have already released new content and new items and new things for them to do.

It's how a MMORPG works.

Ahhh come on, their games bud....What does it matter to you what people have and what they dont? Its a virtual world..its not real...LOL. Try having some fun ingame rather then worrying about other peoples loot. Theres an idea...

While what you say is true, you touch upon one of the problems with your very last sentence; PVP.

If the uber gear stayed in the hard dungeons / raids and didn't come out to the Pvp battlefields they it probably never would matter.

No Pvp will never be fully balanced, but max stat uber gear with pluses is going to own any top level stock gear a solo / non-raider is going to use.

And we won't even get into those that want the stuff just so their soloing is even easier with it than it could possible be already.

Best rule of thumb; if it doesn't effect YOUR gameplay, then why should you care?

I think that that what you craft should rival anything that you may pick up in a raid.

if you replace "deserve" with "need for PvE content" the post works.

I'll copy and past from a different thread, just like you did, heerobya.

"Single player games manage to make solo content very challenging, as challenging as any raid I've ever participated in. MMO developers CHOOSE to make raiding harder and soloing easier for business reasons, not for philosophical ones. Thanks to many developers being hardcore elitists, they haven't been willing to try things differently, despite the potential to make a heck of a lot more money in the process.

Hint: If you raid, you don't need raid gear for anything but raiding. Stop with the bullcrap already. Your e-peen is obviously bigger than mine, sigh." 
 

When a game doesn't allow raiders to stomp through solo / small and full group content with their "Raid" gear, then your argument might have some, but still little merit.

Originally posted by Nebless

While what you say is true, you touch upon one of the problems with your very last sentence; PVP.

If the uber gear stayed in the hard dungeons / raids and didn't come out to the Pvp battlefields they it probably never would matter.

No Pvp will never be fully balanced, but max stat uber gear with pluses is going to own any top level stock gear a solo / non-raider is going to use.

And we won't even get into those that what the stuff just so their soloing is even easier with it than it could possible be already.

That's why they introduced Resilience.

And of course the better gear from raiding would make soloing and small group stuff easier, but, it's already easy enough if you have solo/small group gear so...

Again, it's not about need. It's about WANT. It's about DESIRE, it's about having something you don't have.

Most people would view this as motivation, not a hinderance to your game play.

You have to be realistic. If I don't have millions of dollars, I shouldn't expect to go out and buy a mansion and a brand new Ferari.

If I don't have time to raid, I shouldn't expect to get raid-level gear.

But I don't need a mansion and a brand new Ferrari.

Just as you, the non-raider, doesn't need raid-level gear.

Originally posted by heerobya

I'm all about casual gamers and casual gaming but honestly, you really expect to get the same reward as the hardcore players?

Isn't that a bit unrealistic?

Here's a question for you:

Hardcore raiders get the best gear because they do the most difficult and hardcore content: the raids.

If you are a solo player who doesn't do raids, why do you need the same gear as someone who raids?

You don't. Oh, I get it. You just FEEL inferior.

Well, there is NOTHING in the game you can't solo that you are suppose to be able to solo with the best gear available from soloing.

HINT: If you don't raid, you don't need raid gear to do anything.

There is no group dungeon content you can't complete in a group while only having group dungeon-level gear.

There is no solo content you can't solo complete while only have solo-level gear.

Leave the e-peen at home and open your eyes man.

The only people who "need" the best, highest level, most uber epic gear are those who are doing the most difficult content.

In terms of PvP, well, I don't think PvP can ever be "balanced" completely in a level/gear based MMORPG.

You are assuming that there can never be challenging solo content.

However, I don't have a problem with separate raid gear. But you can't have Uber I'm better than anything else gear only to people who raid. If you do that then you will really split the community even more.

As it stands now, people who solo, play in small groups and/or  raid/pvp can still for the most part group together. Remember, "solo" players do group. It's a misnomer that players are named solo players because they don't want to group. However, this has been discussed ad nauseum in several recent threads. If not more.

I don't believe there are many (though some) solo players who say that they should get the same equipment. But they do need comparable equipment.

If not then there will even be fewer people grouping. A fact that many grouping players seem to lament.

The title of your post says " Why solo players don't "deserve" the same gear as group players", not " Why solo players don't "deserve" the same gear as hardcor raiders". There is a difference. Grouping and raiding are two seperate things. So whi is it you have a problem with? People that don't want to group, or people that don't wanto to raid?

Originally posted by heerobya

In all the discussions I have seen about this topic, I have NEVER and I truly mean NEVER seen a poster say that the reason solo and small group players don't deserve the same gear as hardcore raiders is because the solo and small group players don't need the same level of gear because the content they are doing doesn't require it.

I see now, it's all about greed and wanting something you don't have, and feeling like you are inferior and not actually about the game mechanics and systems at all.

 

The problem with your logic is that the raiders don't actually 'deserve' the gear either but stil insist that becaue they get the gear that they are superior players.  This creates a false basis for a discussion since if gear determines how 'superior' a player is and since raiders are not superior to soloers/casual groupers, then the soloer/casual groupers deserve the same gear as the raiders.

This actually disguises the true imbalance which is content.  The raiders get all the nice shiny content and the soloers/casual groupers get the scraps.  Under that system the soloers/casual groupers don't need new gear because there is no content for them to do with this gear.  You would get the same scenario if things were reversed and it was the raiders who would get a pittance for new content.  The raiders would not need better gear since the gear they already had was enough for running old content over and over again.

Originally posted by Vrazule

I'll copy and past from a different thread, just like you did, heerobya.

 

"Single player games manage to make solo content very challenging, as challenging as any raid I've ever participated in. MMO developers CHOOSE to make raiding harder and soloing easier for business reasons, not for philosophical ones. Thanks to many developers being hardcore elitists, they haven't been willing to try things differently, despite the potential to make a heck of a lot more money in the process.

Hint: If you raid, you don't need raid gear for anything but raiding. Stop with the bullcrap already. Your e-peen is obviously bigger than mine, sigh." 
 

When a game doesn't allow raiders to stomp through solo / small and full group content with their "Raid" gear, then your argument might have some, but still little merit.

Originally posted by Vrazule
"Hint: If you raid, you don't need raid gear for anything but raiding. "

Exactly!

You get my point.

So why is it important that you, the non-raider get's raid-level gear then?

So you can stomp through content you can already beat without that raid-level gear? No wonder you people get bored of MMORPGs so easily, you complain about not getting the best gear and then when you get it it makes the content you actually enjoy doing too easy, it loses the challenge and thus much of the fun.

Seems very easy to understand where I sit.

I like smaller group content more often then raid content simply because of the forced requirements of not only the 'guild' or group your with but the time.  Alot of the time I dont want to spend 5+ hours doing one single thing (thats like a touch of in game add) or being yelled at and told what to do instead of simply being allowed to play my role in the group.   I don't think its fair I spend hours and weeks and months building up my char from an RP perspective only to be told "your build isn't good enough" because im not the popular skill set of the day.  Its a load of crap whatsthe whole point of MMOs having 'choice' if in the end it doesn't matter.   But I digress...

Raids have their place for the raiders and if the gear from those raids were truely only for and only allowed to be used for Raids (and showing off in town)I dont think casuals would complain as much.   But the gear can be used in all sorts of activities and often those players refuse to group with anyone who doesn't have gear and it creates this rather unnecessary divide in the community.  WoW's early days are a prime example of this.  The divide is still there but 'lessoned' thanks to what people call 'welfare' epics.  

The misconceptoin that casuals or solo players are greedy lazy and often horrible players is a total load and we all know it.   Sure there's a pretty large percentage that are but the same can be said of the hard core players.  I've met some pretty crappy people from both pools of players.

Some developers put way to much time into the whole 'gear' scheme and as such people feel shafted that their hours of play are often over looked.  If I spend a week working through a small group quest chain for an item I would hope that item 1 looks pretty damn cool and 2 is a decent step up from the normal crap drops that I can use for other content including pvp.   But thats not the case usually.

Raiders do deserve some pretty cool stuff for the time and effort they put in but that shouldn't make anyone else's hard work mean so much less that they are considered "poo" next to others.

Hero's and their gear come in all shapes and sizes...you shouldn't have to be a 'cog' in a wheel just to appear accomplished in a game.

I think Solo players should be able to get their hands on equal as powerful gear as raiders do.
Sure you could argue Solo players don't "need" that gear to play through solo content, but there is a lot of "gear" i don't really need but want anyway.

Part of the appeal of an mmorpg, at least for me, is developing a character, making it as powerful as it can possibly be. I remember when I was playing World of Warcraft, there was a staff I really wanted. Could I have continue on without that staff? I could, but I wanted it anyway.

The problem with only giving the most powerful items to raiders is that raiding requires a big amount of effort and time spend playing in one session. A raid can easily last for hours.

Imo, alternatives to raiding need to be made that can be obtained by solo play, such as faction grinding or crafting. this way, the casual gamer can obtain the same items as raiders without being forced to spend many hours in one play session. 

Ofcourse a person who spends a lot of time playing the game should be able to obtain the best gear faster than a casual players, but hardcore gear should be accessible by playing casually.

The core problem, especially in games like WoW, is itemization. While individual skill does play a factor, it's eclipsed by equipment. Allow me to explain why this is a problem, and why it feeds into the "Casuals must have something similiar" mentality.

Take the best, say, Warrior you can think of. Put them in any scenario, such as in a raid or in a battleground. The same player with the same abilities is going to perform RADICALLY different depending on their equipment. They might know the raid tactics cold, and in the best gear, are superb - Without the gear, that exact same person is deadweight in your raid. He might be a champ in battlegrounds, knowing how to chose his targets and fight appropriately with excellent gear, but the instant you put them in freshly-turned-80 gear, they're going to get creamed, six ways from Sunday by the first mediocre to poor Arena-geared player he crosses.

And what is the main differential? Time. Time, and time alone. It's often not a matter of social inclination, or capability or knowledge. It's merely time.

Now, how do we value time? Is a 5 consecutive hour block of time more valuable than 5 hours total time played scattered throughout the day? Why should one be worth more or less than the other, when we all pay the same fee?

WoW is about rewarding players for their time investment. I used to do raids in the past, pre-BC. I don't have that kind of time anymore. That's why I've turned to battlegrounds and Wintergrasp for my equipment needs, with the occasional VoA. It fits my schedule, and I can get gear that, while not as good as those who raid and run Arenas, helps me stay competitive. I've dusted the floor with well-equiped players in just my Honor gear, because, quite frankly, I was a better player than them in some fashion.  And even with PvP gear, I can do SOME raids on the off chance that I do have the time to devote to it. It sucks that I can't do heroic versions of some of the raids and dungeons, when it's not my skill that's in question, it's just I'm not itemized for it yet.

If you did not have this alternative path to relaitvely competitive gear for those without long durations of time to devoute to it, what would the casual player do? Keep leveling alts until they hit the same road block? 

Wouldn't have much fun doing that. That's the way I see it anyway.

It's not about the epeen. That's the raider bias wanting to invalidate the soloers argument and reduce it to pettiness.

The important question is; would you be happy if raid gear could only be equipped inside raid instances?

Originally posted by paulscott

if you replace "deserve" with "need for PvE content" the post works.

HAHA love your sig.