Non-gear based pvp

[Slamz]

All the popular FPS games are turning to unlocking guns, abilities, badges, sidearms, equipment upgrades, etc etc.

Advancement.

The idea of advancement is that it keeps current players interested.

The problem with advancement is that it keeps retired players from ever wanting to return. I will never play WOW again largely because I don't want to spend months playing "catch up" before I can get back to the gameplay I liked, which was endgame PvP. Similarly, TF2 advancements sapped a lot of my desire to play it -- I log in and get hit with something that I can't access myself and will have to spend time trying to unlock.

I don't think WW2O is a good example of the dangers of not having advancement. That game has a hard time holding players because it's very very slow paced. It's a simulation, not an action game. I think if they threw in MMORPG style advancement it would actually hurt them in the long run because people would still eventually get bored of sitting in bushes and want to take a break, and then they might never come back because who wants to be a perpetual newbie in a PvP game?

So WW2O is one of the games I can actually go back to periodically -- something I would never do with WOW and at this point probably won't do with Rift. I think advancement does help retention but guarantees a slow death for your game by discouraging players from ever coming back.

Advancement also separates your players. Games like WW2O are the ones where anyone can log in and play together immediately to mutual benefit. You can't do that in steep advancement games like WOW and Rift. We *could* group but it would be the higher level player walking the lower level player around and basically powerleveling them, which, as a form of gameplay, always feels pretty absurd -- like playing a single player game and putting it into "Baby's First Game" difficulty mode. It just ends up being a chore you have to do in order to reach the gameplay you want.

I also think advancement is anti-new player in the same way it's anti-returning veteran. Who wants to join a big PvP game one year after launch when you KNOW you're going to spend a month or three getting owned until you work your way up the advancement tree? "No fun for 3 months" is a lot to ask of a prospective player.


Basically I think advancement causes more problems than it solves.