Power creep-what's happening to this game

Chigenkaiona - Dreamweaver

There was a world chat discussion yesterday, and now the other guy's thread about returning and being wanted 5aps for bh, and and the purify being OP, so on.....wanted to clear up what's going on with this game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Power Creep-watch the video and you'll understand what's going on, as it does with most games(Some have managed to avoid it). Accept it or don't bother with power creep consumed games. It cannot be helped at this point unless were taken a lot of popular content away such as NW, 5aps, and so on.

Angel_Spawn - Sanctuary

Nicely explained, and for PWI, if you are a new player, don`t even bother playing it, mmorpg`s are only worth playing in their early releases or max 1 maybe 2 years after the release when everything is more or less balanced.

PWI is my 3rd big game, those who came before it had same fate, big power, f2p < p2w, thus creating a huge imbalance and people quitting due to the company`s greed, same has happened to PWI, only people happy with this constant power creep are heavy cashoppers who like to buy power or hard - core merchants/farmers.

It sux if you have worked hard for your gear only to realize after some update it has become more or less trash, when the game developers introduce something way more powerful and in PWI`s case with the new NV3 a lot and I mean a LOT more easier to obtain (compared to previous NV2) by virtually doing nothing, as well as providing an even powerful set of gears for p2w people just to **** f2p over!

Oo_Spud_oO - Sanctuary

Well maybe PWI should look at this and learn something b:sad

Decus - Dreamweaver

I love the way every time one person stumbles onto Extra Credits, they feel the need to post it on the forum.
Just
like
all
of
these
people.

Zanryu - Dreamweaver

Decus - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I love the way every time one person stumbles onto Extra Credits, they feel the need to post it on the forum.
Just
like
all
of
these
people.

Hey dude, look what I found! PWI could sure learn something from this video!

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

5:20

Exactly why we will never see any improvement with PWI.
They simply can't do it.

Knownase - Heavens Tear

Decus - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I love the way every time one person stumbles onto Extra Credits, they feel the need to post it on the forum.
Just
like
all
of
these
people.

I was going to say............haven't I've seen a thread on power creeping like............a zillion times already?

Sylvae - Sanctuary

They gotta keep the higher tier buying something, and with NW they let the lower tier catch up in gear the way hypers let them catch up in level. Sucks for them they skipped all the content, but I guess they feel fulfilled somehow. The biggest issue is all dressed up, and nothing worth killing in PvE.

Asone - Raging Tide

Love the video. I'd also love it if the PW staff took a look at it as well. They may already be aware of power creep but with developers being over in China not much can be said for PWI itself since it is only mimicked off PWCN. Also, Asian games tend to suffer more then games made in the USA over the course of the last few years. b:surrender

(might edit later, I forgot what else I was gonna say)

Sylvae - Sanctuary

Asone - Raging Tide wrote: »

Love the video. I'd also love it if the PW staff took a look at it as well. They may already be aware of power creep but with developers being over in China not much can be said for PWI itself since it is only mimicked off PWCN. Also, Asian games tend to suffer more then games made in the USA over the course of the last few years. b:surrender

(might edit later, I forgot what else I was gonna say)

Yeah, though alot of the chinese game makers are being brought private and delisted from the stock exchange recently. Unfortunately, after PWE leaked news of a VC investment (*cough*offshore bank account*cough*), it has dropped the value and increased the odds PWE might go private again. And I doubt they'd do it for the value of the customer.

Asone - Raging Tide

Sylvae - Sanctuary wrote: »

Yeah, though alot of the chinese game makers are being brought private and delisted from the stock exchange recently. Unfortunately, after PWE leaked news of a VC investment (*cough*offshore bank account*cough*), it has dropped the value and increased the odds PWE might go private again. And I doubt they'd do it for the value of the customer.

Since I work for a company that thinks very little of the values of others (including employees), in most cases this is sad but very true. b:cry

Nymphali - Dreamweaver

Asone - Raging Tide wrote: »

Love the video. I'd also love it if the PW staff took a look at it as well. They may already be aware of power creep but with developers being over in China not much can be said for PWI itself since it is only mimicked off PWCN. Also, Asian games tend to suffer more then games made in the USA over the course of the last few years. b:surrender

(might edit later, I forgot what else I was gonna say)

PWE tries to help us it seems. With facebook connect, dqrewards, dreamchaser, and all. But it seems not enough XD

WS is stupidly hard for mild-geared people, how can one farm for gears if they need gears to farm it b:puzzled.

I can solo Deathflow 3-2 with frenzy and I cant solo one of those AoEing mobs in ws >.>

Chigenkaiona - Dreamweaver

Nymphali - Dreamweaver wrote: »

PWE tries to help us it seems. With facebook connect, dqrewards and all. But it seems not enough XD

WS is stupidly hard for mild-geared people, how can one farm for gears if they need gears to farm it b:puzzled.

That forces them to try non-dungeon money making methods. Herb/Skill mats digging, merchanting, NW, and whatnot. Just to save up and buy the gear needed. Eventually people want a dungeon that is hard for them or in some form challenges them to the current average gear, but WS has been overthought and making it so you need at least 4 people to solo a pavillion is where it all went wrong.

Vyderahh - Lost City

More attention to Skills, PvP Balance and Dungeons would be nice. Right now the game is so focused on brute Forse PvP and Dungeons are seen as nothing but a way to farm gear or exp we have nothing to do... R9 seems to be a bit of a murderer. I mean, you shell out a crapload of cash to get it, but thats the easy gear to get if you have a nice job, then what? There's really nothing to do. You don't need to farm gear... You have it.

What is there to do aside from farm gear and help nubs? I mean, there's no mentor system so... how do we even help the nublits without starting a new character? There's no real focus on playing the game anymore, get a level 101 for Fb 19 and you're done.

The power Creeping thing is another problem, the fact that its been posted so many times here says something in itself. We shoudl really have deversified gear, not just straight up power gear. Like several types of something. For example, R9 with strength instead of vit or a balance of both.

If they added some kind of Mentor system and put a level cap on Dungeons maybe we could play a little less based on gear and bring some focus back to playing the game.

Or rather than add new gear, focus on making mounts and flyers MORE USEFUL, mounted combat, dungeons that focus on flying, jumping around, not just fighting mobs.. *shrug* Take a new road rather than follow up power with power. They have to figure out something since they cant raise the level cap without breaking the game.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear

I think it would be a good idea if they fixed and balanced the older portions of the game before adding new ones. In effect this could very well add new portions to the game without actually having to create a lot of new content.

Take Lothranis and Momagonan for example. Both are high level exclusive areas that are never visited for anything other than farming because there is nothing but mobs in 3/4 of them. Two of the four dungeons were taken offline to be repurposed for later content, the quest chains end at the halfway point of the area, and the mobs were never made to handle the current level of gear. Restructuring these places to involve deeper content for higher level players wouldn't be that hard and the only maps you would have to create would be for dungeons to take the place of Heavenly Music Pavilion (Warsong City) and Renegade (don't know what they did with this but I suspect it's jungle ruins temple run now)

Another option would be to expand Morai. It's littered with ruins and temples that serve absolutely no purpose. Turn each one into a solo mini game dungeon run type of deal, kind of like carnival games except mini dungeons. Give rewards based on performance, time, and skill, and there will probably be a resurgence in going to morai. (Just pls don't make the rewards gear that's more powerful than we have now b:angry)

Someone once brought up the option of using the outdated OHT area to go back in time to the age of the twilight empire when all the soldiers were practically wearing R9s3 and were undefeated. Wouldn't that make for an interesting quest chain/ map. The dungeon run could be the Twilight Temple when it isn't a ruin and the quest could be made to tie into the whole Twilight Temple story and the disasters that followed.

Anyway will probably never happen but a few options to create decent replay value without creating loads of new content or bringing in even more OP gear (though admittedly the TT idea would require quite a bit of work) and would certainly be better then the dungeons they gave us in previuos expansions like Nirvana, EU, and that other dungeon with rats that was barely anything at all.

To Vyderahh I like the mounted combat idea but how would that work with untamed and sins?

Ignathas - Sanctuary

i think biggest mistakes are:

a) resetting dq price to 1, for all the dq below lvl 100, basically making it impossible for noobs to make money, if i joined the game now i would just quit it

b) adding only 4 lands and making unfair NW wars tactics, enabling for the OP to base lock every noob and earning 0 coins afterwards; there should be set a minimal amount of tokens as reward and more territories around bases + some safety net for weakest

c) disabling coin rewards for delta

d) **** nirvana to dust

e) **** trials to dust

f) quest rewards are useless; and whatever happened to dragon quests (copper dragon orders or smth)

g) what happened to public quest..

h) making fun of those who spent thousands of irl money to get r9r and then making such huge rewards for NW, making it accessible to anyone; aka. power creep


things they did improve:
a) more choices in pvp, improved it alot by adding NWs

b) adding more classes wich are quite well balanced

c) adding new skills, wich are quite well balanced

d) adding Aeu, Morai, Warsong, improving Lunar, Nix, changing BHs

e) adding more variations to gears, and making g15 and r9 not useless, but as materials for making the new gear (that way tt90 still has value, cos u can make tt 99 then g14 then g15 and then g16) or u must have 100k rep then 200k rep then r9 to make r9r, so not completely screwed those ppl, but with the price difference of making.. at least refines have its price still

to sum up game is changing, and not all the changes are bad, i like how its evolving and some things i dont like, but they need to add more new content to newcomers or possibilities except for wallet stuff

like the original storyline, or the old pwi, nostalgic

Tulipia - Dreamweaver

By this logic all new players are screwed.

Byeeeeeb:bye


*cough*Fixthefacebookconnectblessingsalready*cough*

Asone - Raging Tide

Vyderahh - Lost City wrote: »

If they added some kind of Mentor system and put a level cap on Dungeons maybe we could play a little less based on gear and bring some focus back to playing the game.

Or rather than add new gear, focus on making mounts and flyers MORE USEFUL, mounted combat, dungeons that focus on flying, jumping around, not just fighting mobs..

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I think it would be a good idea if they fixed and balanced the older portions of the game before adding new ones. In effect this could very well add new portions to the game without actually having to create a lot of new content.

Take Lothranis and Momagonan for example. Both are high level exclusive areas that are never visited for anything other than farming because there is nothing but mobs in 3/4 of them. Two of the four dungeons were taken offline to be repurposed for later content, the quest chains end at the halfway point of the area, and the mobs were never made to handle the current level of gear. Restructuring these places to involve deeper content for higher level players wouldn't be that hard and the only maps you would have to create would be for dungeons to take the place of Heavenly Music Pavilion (Warsong City) and Renegade (don't know what they did with this but I suspect it's jungle ruins temple run now)

Another option would be to expand Morai. It's littered with ruins and temples that serve absolutely no purpose. Turn each one into a solo mini game dungeon run type of deal, kind of like carnival games except mini dungeons. Give rewards based on performance, time, and skill, and there will probably be a resurgence in going to morai. (Just pls don't make the rewards gear that's more powerful than we have now b:angry)

Someone once brought up the option of using the outdated OHT area to go back in time to the age of the twilight empire when all the soldiers were practically wearing R9s3 and were undefeated. Wouldn't that make for an interesting quest chain/ map. The dungeon run could be the Twilight Temple when it isn't a ruin and the quest could be made to tie into the whole Twilight Temple story and the disasters that followed.

Anyway will probably never happen but a few options to create decent replay value without creating loads of new content or bringing in even more OP gear (though admittedly the TT idea would require quite a bit of work) and would certainly be better then the dungeons they gave us in previuos expansions like Nirvana, EU, and that other dungeon with rats that was barely anything at all.

^
These ideas I like. b:victory

Kinjeto - Raging Tide

Still feels like an old MMOG that is stuck in the past. b:laugh

But
China
Wouldn't
Do
That
Right?

More better fire-stoked/depthful player falling driven experiences are already coming out of the wood work that are free-to-play or in the long run will probably be more community based and driven (can't mention them here, but see what I did there).

Also the better things in Perfect World International's back catalogue (not developed by them) that have great incomparable gameplay like Blacklight Retribution which I'd probably recommend people go and get because unlike PWCN's first horrid cash cow, ALL Blacklight Retribution wants is 60 USD or 100 USD
and Blacklight won't slug you for charms with a stupid **** sale every 2 months.

I always tell my friends (yes word of mouth works). If you are going to play anything at Perfect World International, play anything --> NOT <--- developed by them. Make sure you check the developer. If it says Published by and Developed by Perfect World. Avoid it. If it says Developed by some other developer like Zombie Studios then proceed with caution.

I think the issues in the future (assuming the flag ship product doesn't get more ****/stupid with power and pack selling) are going to be charm accessibility, Rank 9 accessibility if anything for this pile of **** to keep going. Hopefully the product will just become more non-viable like it did when the Malaysian Cubizone ran it and PWCN will have to shut the US one down. But I doubt that will happen, still you never know, stranger things have happened when PWCN has changed things.

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

and no one pointed to this one?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXA559KNopI

Decus - Dreamweaver

Psytrac - Dreamweaver wrote: »

and no one pointed to this one?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXA559KNopI

See...

Decus - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I love the way every time one person stumbles onto Extra Credits, they feel the need to post it on the forum.
Just
like
all
of
these
people.

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

hey, it makes sense..

Nature_God - Sanctuary

I think its persons own decision if he/she starts to play PWI or not.

SaphirHealer - Archosaur

Well the fact people keep bring this topic up means the company is not making a bigger portion of the player base happy...watching those videos its like pwe sat down, watched them..and said "ok so we are gonna do the exact OPPOSITE of what he just said we should do..."

b:chuckle

OIdpop - Heavens Tear

The video the OP posted is very true.And yeah sad to say it but pw has become this.But then Again it takes two to tango,a lot of the players make the power creep possible.

GlenRoss - Archosaur

... but it seems like the answer to a lot of complaints about PW, including power creep, is more distinction of tasks and opportunities between the lower and higher levels.

Take out the race-for-the-top mentality from the lower levels. Make it an experience of its own. Let people play it without the pressure of getting to 100. That's not to say make it DIFFICULT to level but make it necessary to work your toon to get there. With all of the 50-level players actually playing the game, the low levels can be enjoyed and not bypassed.

I'm sure some will throw ash into the air and tear their clothes at this thought, but I believe more people would stay and play if they didn't feel like their first weeks were useless. The plevelers would hate it but a great many of them burn out after a few months anyway. Let the lowbies be lowbies, then graduate when they're ready.

Kinjeto - Raging Tide

GlenRoss - Archosaur wrote: »

... but it seems like the answer to a lot of complaints about PW, including power creep, is more distinction of tasks and opportunities between the lower and higher levels.

Take out the race-for-the-top mentality from the lower levels. Make it an experience of its own. Let people play it without the pressure of getting to 100. That's not to say make it DIFFICULT to level but make it necessary to work your toon to get there. With all of the 50-level players actually playing the game, the low levels can be enjoyed and not bypassed.

I'm sure some will throw ash into the air and tear their clothes at this thought, but I believe more people would stay and play if they didn't feel like their first weeks were useless. The plevelers would hate it but a great many of them burn out after a few months anyway. Let the lowbies be lowbies, then graduate when they're ready.

That is what I also believe Archosaur studios was trying to achieve with the Dragon Quest item mechanic. Cause the shiny purple and silver horse are funky. Also that there are quite a few molds in the DQ items that are hard to obtain or rare to get but are unique. But then PW-CN nicked it from them and saw an economizing opportunity thus here we are.

Archosaur Studios saw fun awesome 5 city world filled with magic creatures, a buddhist calender element resistance-damage system, fun items and mounts.

PWCN saw a business (power creep price gouging) opportunity.