Today I would like to talk about progression system we have and how it could be "fixed" in long term. I know its difficult topic and many people won't like the idea.
As we all know, current progression system we have is classic vertical progression, where character becomes stronger and can last longer. We got two basic layers of character progression, one is gear and other is renown progression which gives extra points to spend on important stats and also gives extra mastery points. I guess we can generaly agree that there is huge stat difference between RR60 character in vanquisher and RR80 character in sov or using endgame gear mashups.
Lets for example compare on Warrior Priest, 8 pc Sov (with 3 pc Genesis) vs 6 Vanq (with 5 pc Genesis).
Sov has 492 armor, 56 toughness, 39 initiative, 51 wounds, 72 willpower, and 95 resistances more than Vanquisher (so 218 raw stats ignoring armor and resistances).
And mixed variant ignoring resource proc and going for raw stats, also Warrior Priest, 5 pc Sov + 3 pc Inv (with Gunbad Diamond, 2 pc Geneis) vs Vanq (with 5 pc Genesis).
Sov mixed with invader has 336 armor, 10 toughness, 49 initiative, 160 wounds, 108 willpower and 82 resistances more than Vanquisher (so 327 raw stats ignoring armor and resistances).
Insane, right? Keep in mind that guy running in Vanq has also less renown, which is literaly worth either +5% healing crit or 7-9% reduced chance to be crit, which is quite huge as its stacked already with stat difference.
As most of you probably know, there is also different progression system you can see in MMO genre. It's called horizontal progression where gear sets got similar total base stats, but are specialized in different directions, giving more experienced players more gear choices, not necessarily more raw power. It would be exciting, for couple reasons:
- Makes new player experience better and should help with player retention;
- No huge power creep, new characters are more competitive since they hit CR40, while they still have less renown points to spend and less set options to pick from or mix;
- Older sets could have more value for old characters as well, with interesting choice of set bonuses dungeons like Gunbad would be something more than just sad ToK unlock for majority...