I had a great comment from Villainelle my article on the Lazy Rabbit and I thought I’d bring it up front.
Thanks Vil.
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Excessive investment of time in a game with a large “casual” player population should be rewarded–with aesthetic rewards. These rewards should not influence combat or overall competitiveness with other players. The gear can look uber, sure, but the stats must be equal to, or otherwise NOT more generally advantageous than, what a non-raider, or non-large-consecutive-block-of-time-invester, can acquire.
Kendricke, your ideas are great for a game that would be designated on-the-box as a serious raiding game that requires a certain time investment for the player to expect to remain competitive in the game world and be able to enjoy all of the game’s content. Your ideas simply don’t work in a game with a large “casual” playerbase. No matter how much you try to minimize the inequality, it remains a fundamental aspect of the game and breeds discontent.
And there is the rub. I think the problem is that we’re trying to force two opposing PvE concepts into one game, similar to WoW’s strained marriage of PvE and PvP (which has failed on the PvP end, as most admit).
Over time I’ve come to realize that the two types of PvE endgame–which I’m woefully generalizing for the sake of brevity as “hardcore” and “casual”–simply cannot satisfyingly coexist in the same game, by their very nature. Why? Because casual endgame is inclusive, while hardcore endgame is exclusive. The casual gamer wants to participate in everything and have an equal chance at an equal game experience, loot, etc. The casual does not want an “easier” game (if I hear this one more time…), but he DOES want an “equal” game. The hardcore gamer, conversely, wants to compete with her peers and achieve something that allows her to dominate, in some way, for a time (world firsts, guild/gear prestige etc.). The hardcore gamer does not want a “harder” game per se (see below), but she DOES want a meaningful reward for her time investment.
Both are valid game goals. They’re just mutually incompatible.
If we’re reasonable, we don’t need to rehash why the “casual” label does not mean “someone who wants easymode.” I hope I don’t need to explain why some people do not want to or cannot participate in a typical 20hr+/week raiding schedule, reside in a large guild, etc. Logically we must accept that there is no reason for “contiguous 6-hour block of time” to be qualitatively superior to “six separate 1-hour blocks of time” in an MMORPG. If game design tries to make it so, then the game design clearly favors the “hardcore” endgame model and is anti-casual, and again, there’s no point trying to force both in the same game; the devs should settle on one goal and pursue it openly. To do else is folly and will alienate the casual base; see World of Warcraft.
But I do want to debunk the “hardcore gamers just want more challenge and don’t care about loot” myth. Being a powergamer and a hardcore raider who has done a hard bit of self-examination, I feel quite qualified to posit my theory on this one. Someone on a game forum offered up an excellent thought experiment that nailed it for me:
Let’s say MMORPG X puts in a raid instance, and when you enter the instance you’re presented with a choice: Easy or Hard Mode. Both modes reward IDENTICAL loot. The Easy instance is just…easier! And so on. No one will be able to tell how you got the gear. There is absolutely no special reward or penalty based on your choice of mode.
Now what would you, as a hardcore raider, choose? Knowing that “casuals” will have absolutely no qualms about throwing together a PUG and going for an Easy run to grab some great gear?
If we’re being honest, most raiders would choose Easy first, gear up as quickly and efficiently as possible, and perhaps for kicks someday, try a Hard Mode run. (My former guild in WoW occasionally tried some silly challenges when we had nothing else to do…like having me, a rogue, tank Onyxia in an alt farming run. Sadly, with my Naxx epics, I did better as an evasion tank than some poor warrior in blues/T1, and managed to hold aggro (after a minute’s headstart of DPSing) too.) Very few people truly invest so much time into hardcore raiding chiefly for “the challenge.” Our main goal is THE PRESTIGE. Challenge is a SIDE goal for most; it keeps things interesting and makes competition more fierce, but honestly, inside most raiders there is some degree of gear lust, a desire to collect shinies or some completist/collector urge (rare recipes, full armor sets, etc.).
I say again: I’m definitely in that group; I love collecting gear and strutting around looking pimp after slaving in some choreographed raid chorus line for weeks. That’s fun for me. I’m a chick, so, you know, it’s okay if I’m into dress-up. But it belongs in its own MMO, and it’s not fair to tack on that sort of endgame onto a game that is primarily populated by–and worse, MARKETED toward–casuals.
But I think this is only a real problem for WoW, which has been in the throes of an identity crisis since release: is it a hardcore PvE raiding game? Is it a PvP game? Is there any place for casuals after hitting max level? WoW’s fragmented community and census numbers of late indicate that it at least has not succeeded at blending these three aspects, and glancing over the huge amount of commentary on the web regarding this issue tells you that it’s the PvP and casual PvE contingents which are most dissatisfied.
I think once Conan and Warhammer are released, we’ll see the PvP crowd finally leave WoW en masse, as to some degree the casual PvE crowd has been steadily bleeding away or jumping ship in small handfuls to games like LotRO. Unfortunately, there is no flagship casual PvE game out there, although LotRO may gradually win this spot by the favorable word-of-mouth it’s generating. (It’s been a fun diversion for me, although I know it’s inevitable that I’ll powergame it to death and soon become bored.) While I was ultimately dissatisfied with WoW’s endgame despite being the right type for it, I think the game development and community will be much healthier once players have true choices and stop trying to wring out of WoW what it simply can’t deliver. WoW is the slicker, newer EQ–and better at it than EQ2 is!–an excellent, dedicated raiding game with abortive attempts at PvP and casual PvE grafted on; I’ll be less resentful of Blizzard for my own broken hopes once they have the balls to admit that. But again, I don’t see that happening until these next-gen MMORPGs are released, and the first-gen MMORPG players realize they have a choice aside from WoW.
MMORPGs aren’t niche anymore. WoW proved they have broad appeal, yet failed to satisfy all gaming types equally; it remains to next-gen online games to realize that a smash-hit jack-of-all-trades like WoW is unlikely to happen again any time soon, and that specialization–and a necessarily smaller market share–is the next step for the genre. Once we’ve had a few years of highly specialized games refining their respective modes of gameplay (PvP, raiding, casual grouping, soloing, crafting, role-playing/socialization, everything), we may see another brilliant synthesis of all that has come before, as WoW was the culmination and dazzling refinement of all that came before it.
And maybe, by then, Blizz will freaking fix Vanish.
One can dream.
-Vill
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June 20th, 2007 at 8:08 am
That pretty much says it all, really. I agree with every word, having once been a raider that switched camps myself. There’s really not room in one game for all the things WoW is trying to be. Try though they might, eventually the bottom drops out as people begin to realize that they can’t get what they want from it. This happens with any MMO, and moreso with newer games coming out.
There will likely always be a solid group of WoW devotees, long after it’s time in the spotlight, just like there are for EQ1 and UO, etc. But as gamers, creatures of anticipation and big dreams/hype, we’d all be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to the next batch of games that have learned from WoW’s mistakes.
I know I am. I’m playing one right now (LotRO), and looking forward to AoC, WAR, PotBS, Gods and Heroes, etc. There really are a lot of games on the horizon that have had time to study the failures and successes of WoW. The only one of the above mentioned that tries to be many things at once is LotRO (even there the developers will tell you PvP is a side-game and the main form of gameplay is group instances and the odd raid, essentially a PvE game). The rest are all trying to do one thing really well. AoC and its City building PvP and PvE. WAR and its RvR. Pirates and its Sea Warfare. Gods and Heroes with its minion system.
No doubt they’ll all try to have other aspects involved, but they’re all being forthwith about what they’re main draw is, be it PvP or PvE. And what’s not shocking but indicative of the future for MMOs? They’re all highly solo-friendly. And playable in short spurts. And so on, and so forth.
I guess what I’m getting at, is that although WoW’s time as the “revered” MMO by us gamers is likely coming to an end, it can’t be denied that it’s left the market in a far better shape than it was when it came in. And also made it possible for us gamers who suddenly find ourselves with real lives to keep playing.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Great article! It says everything! It even makes me wonder if the reason that WoW is so popular, other than it will run on a piece of toast and still look great, is that it has the three aspects of a MMO that everyone wants to see, even if the vision isn’t blended well, its the only place you can one stop shop right now. Yes, EQ2 has all but is it blended as well as WoW is.
But this is a side topic. I think the reall WoW killer will be the one that manages to blend all those together seamlessly and reward everyone for particapating equally.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I went back to her original comment post and clicked the link. Sadly, there was no blog for me to add to my blogroll. Vil/Leah! Start blogging.
Great article.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:00 am
[...] at “Common Sense Gamer”, Darren is apparently determined to show just how much you can beat a horse and jump a shark at the same [...]
June 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I thought I was the only one who thought WoW could not be all things to all people. Hooray I don’t feel so crazy anymore. I think they have tried really hard to satisfy casual players and people who like small groups with the expansion and last few updates, but the core problem still exists: if one endgame track offers better rewards, they will always win any sort of competition in the other endgame tracks. I have raided for awhile but grew bored with the lack of intelligent challenge (I find 5 man more challenging and has more potential) and organizing so many people is not my idea of fun, more like work.
Some say “play how you want and ignore everyone” but the truth is we don’t live or play in a vacuum. Sitting around in clown costume gear while the person next to you has nice looking matching armor isn’t so fun. I can’t have a guy that sits around crafting, the player that raids can craft better than me due to better recipes and mats that are only available in raids (or easier farming due to better gear). I can’t pvp, the player that raids can beat me due to better gear. Basically, not just raiding but in all aspects of the game, non raiders play second fiddle. This quickly leads to boredom and finding a different game that caters to our interest.
But what is the solution to keep players in the game? Raiding is a pain and needs to be rewarded or people won’t do it. People can say they love the challenge, but as the post says, people will follow the incentives. Raiding needs incentives or no one will go to the instances. But as we mention, as it is right now, the other endgame tracks have no incentive to pursue them exclusively.
With the introduction of resilience and penetration WoW is starting to have separate gear requirements for arenas at least, if not the other pvp alternatives. So arenas alone have incentive to do arenas instead of raid. But WoW won’t keep the arena players because it’s not an arena game, many of them complain about needing to spend months preparing a character for the arena (levelling, equipping etc). They might just leave for Tabula Rasa, who knows.
Really all casual players want is to compete against other casual players, not have it easy. In the end it’s the same problem that all forms of casual or fun competition have. It’s similar to casual sports leagues. There’s always the one team that practices hard and treats it like a profession to try to beat the other teams that they know won’t. Eventually separate leagues get formed for the different types of players. Look at amateur auto racing and you can see this evolution. So in a way it’s an old problem from long before WoW came out.
So maybe we should take a queue from sports and create different tracks or challenge levels. Not only have easy and hard mode, but adjust the rewards based on the mode.
In PvP you might be able to do that by analyzing gear and matching players. In PvE you could if when entering the instance it analyzes your gear and sets challenges and rewards accordingly, somewhat similar to CoX. So if a team went into a 5-man in their raid gear, it would automatically become heroic, etc.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:11 am
In the same breath, you mention wanting more non-raid incentives, then discuss how other players’ gear affects your enjoyment of the game. To be fair, you’re not the only person who feels this way, and quite a few players seem to believe that if only there weren’t raiding, somehow everything would even out a bit more…
How?
If there were no raiders, would competitive players who spent their time raiding suddenly stop playing altogether? Of course not. They’ll simply move on to the next highest tier of content – the very content you’re involved in.
Now, they’re killing the monster you wanted or needed. They’re clearing the area you were hunting in. They’re blowing through the quests you were working on. They’re pushing through the dungeons you were in.
Which leaves you sitting in gear that’s still a step behind those players, because unless you’re prepared to put in the time and effort they are, you’re always going to be a step or two behind. I accept this. My guildmates accept this. We strive to become better, but we don’t bemoan our lot in life because there are players with more time, better computers, and faster connections.
This discussion, when you boil off all the fluff and filler, really reduces down to this: People don’t like feeling left out. People want to be special.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Also I think kendricke is right that we should stop using “casual” as synonymous with “non raider” since the guild coalition I raided with was very casual. There were few hardcore or leet dudes and they would end up leaving. It is hard not to confuse the two even when you try.
It’s more raiding vs other endgame tracks. Is there a way to balance them?
I guess the hardcore vs casual is a different topic I went into a little with my sports analogy and having dungeons automatically adjust the risk and rewards.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:28 am
This discussion, when you boil off all the fluff and filler, really reduces down to this: People don’t like feeling left out. People want to be special.
Ultimately no. It’s about following the incentives Blizzard sets out. If all the best incentives are for raiding, then there is no incentive to do anything else. You can be casual or hardcore about it all. I don’t have a problem with a player who plays more getting better rewards. I do have a problem with Blizzard saying if I don’t raid my progress is limited to X. I have raided for 4-5 months in a casual guild, and just don’t enjoy it. Blizzard has added content, but it’s non competitive, aka there’s no incentive, so I stopped.
Why should the best crafting materials and even recipes be only available in raids?
Why should a player who likes crafting be forced to raid?
Why should the player who loves to pvp be forced to raid?
Maybe WoW should change, or maybe the players should admit WoW is the wrong game for them as I did a few months ago. As others have pointed out, a lot of PvPers are looking forward to AoC and WAR for this very reason. It’s a raiding game. They’ve added content sure, but the rewards are non competitive, which removes incentives to actually DO that content.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:32 am
You know SUN has an intersting take on dungeons relating to questing, is that upon enterance to the location you can select how difficult you want it to be, easy, hard, elite (raid). Now if you tag the difficulty to reward then you have a system that does not restrict the experience of a dungeon to raiders only.
Admittably then we come to the haves and have nots and I think Kendricke had some nice ideas on loot and alternatives, so will leave it there …
June 20th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Y’all got me thinking and writing so much about this that I finally went and made a blog. My reply to Darren’s original Raid Be Gone post is there.
I’m going to reply just a bit here too, though. Let me grab a yunk quote;
“But what is the solution to keep players in the game? Raiding is a pain and needs to be rewarded or people won’t do it. People can say they love the challenge, but as the post says, people will follow the incentives. Raiding needs incentives or no one will go to the instances.”
Raiding isn’t a pain to a certain subset of the population. Kendricke is an example of this. I know plenty of people who love the challenge of raiding, and it’s their favorite part of mmorpg’s. The problem with WoW is that raiding is the only real endgame option. The problem with mmorpg’s is the only successful endgame options we’ve seen implemented are raiding and PvP.
This is still a young industry, though, and I’d bet money that plenty of developers see the dead ends pretty clearly and they’re trying to design solutions. I’d bet serious money that’s one of the reasons WAR has been pushed back. After playing a lot of DAOC, I’m hopeful that Mythic can combine PvE, PvP, dungeon crawling and raiding into one game and provide a meaningful endgame experience that goes beyond what WoW provides.
The best endgames that I’ve experienced are when the people on your server benefit from helping each other out, like Eve and DAOC. If you don’t enjoy the challenges of endgame raiding, suffering through those raids just for gear is purely a selfish exercise. It’s much more rewarding to participate in a group activity that is a little more selfless, like defending your keeps or your star systems. I’ll be watching closely to see if that’s the type of gameplay Mythic is after with WAR.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:49 am
.
I think Rick nails it right there. It’s not about whether or not raiding is good, bad, or otherwise. It’s not about whether or not raiders are hardcore, elitist, or what have you.
It’s about “I want more content for my playstyle”. Raiding and PVP are typically the only two playstyles that end up with an “end game”. I’d love to see soloing or grouping or tradeskilling end-games as well.
However, as I point out over at the tracker, it’s still not going to stop the arguments. Give everyone what they want…and they’ll still want what everyone else has, too. You simply can’t trump human nature, and it’s in our nature to covet.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
No matter how causual anyone becomes, there is always someone who is more casual with less time to play. At the same time no matter how hardcore you get, someone out there is playing more and likely doing better as well. No game can truly be designed to fit everyones needs.
You mentioned that the casual player wants to be “equal” with everyone else. I will assume this means gear. This will never happen. Even in the most casual of casual games someone will always play more, and have better stuff. The only way for this not to be true, would be to have so little to do, and that content be so easy that everyone can do it and in a very short amount of time. Then what though? You have the best gear, you didn’t work hard to get it and there isn’t anything else to do. At that point you are playing a chat room, not a game.
Game by the very definition assumes competition.
Game [geym] noun, adjective, – a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators
June 20th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I’ve been reading this crap for a while and it’s really starting to bug me.
Raiding and PVP are normally the only end game in MMORPG because… it is an MMORPG. The natural progression of an massively multiplayer game is to make MASSIVE raids.
Games tailored for soloing and small groups are generally aren’t MMO. Regular RPG are made for solo/small group play.
To me, an MMO designed for solo play is um… contradictory. Not that I’m saying a single player game with built in random match making and instant messenger is a bad thing… it’s just not my kind of game.
I admit I’m a little elitist and slightly dislike that it is so easy to level solo in WoW and many other games depriving people the understanding of group mechanics and having to rely on others. This capability to solo all the way to max level makes the change to raiding too jarring. If your end-game is going to be raiding you better make sure that the rest of the game points that direction as you level so that the players are prepared for it.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
WoW has provided a lot of small group content, but it is not as competitive. It can’t be, because raids require more work and therefore better rewards. I am in full agreement with that – as far as current small group content goes.
I thought heroic instances were going to be the “end game” for small group content – harder small dungeons people that enjoy raids won’t bother going to, but other people might, and allow them a track to improve their character. But there is no real reward for doing heroics. If they made heroics worth entering, more people would do them. But right now they aren’t.
Does anyone see a problem with making heroic instances give better rewards, maybe even having some heroics even harder – so you have to gear up on the easier ones?
The one I can think of is people with black temple gear might help friends breeze through them. That might still be “too easy” esp considering you can go for weeks waiting for an item to drop when you have enough DKP. Of course maybe that just means the itemization of raids is off, and be an argument for ideas like token based rewards instead of random drops. Heroics as I envision them would not have tokens but be random and have cooldown periods just like raid dungeons.
Or just make the focus less loot-centric as it is now. Since the entire game is focussed on loot, the rewards dropped become a huge part of the incentive to do things. The RvR suggestion above is one way of creating an alternative incentive.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:15 am
Let’s be clear here. In the debates about whether all content should be available to all playstyles, almost nobody really cares about the content. Nearly all of these discussions are actually talking about rewards, not whether a solo player should be able to take scenic tours of the Black Temple or Emerald Halls.
That said, what if an MMO offered two or three paths to the same rewards? For those who like to raid, give them cool raid drops. For those who like to adventure in groups or solo, provide some more effort-based paths to achieve the coveted loot.
In a perfect world that will work, but you’d inevitably have arguments about whether the effort of X was truly on par with the effort of Y. Because in MMOs, intense and community-driven players (how’s that for avoiding the word “hardcore”?) care about three things: 1) their stuff, 2) everyone else’s stuff, and 3) how everyone else got their stuff and whether it was easier than the way they got their own stuff.
So not only do you have people caring about the things you do or do not have, they also care about whether you earned them according to their standards. Fun!
This kind of human nature is very difficult to overcome in the design of a competitive, reward-driven game. Because, well, people are just being competitive and reward-driven like you asked them to be.
But I think the notion that multiple playstyles–even two as at odds as the ones presented here seem to be–can’t coexist in the same game is a copout for both players and designers. It will never be about invoking some kind of total harmony, but rather providing enough fun stuff for everyone regardless of how they like to play.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:07 am
Problem is regarding having enough fun stuff for everyone to do based on a tangible rewards system reliably undermines motivation under most circumstances. Interestingly the most detrimental reward contingency involves giving rewards as a direct function of people’s performance. I.e. Those who perform best get the most rewards and those who perform less well get less (or no) rewards.
So in reality the game design in itself causes the problem of the haves and have nots. The raider and non raider, the casual gamer vs the non casual gamer. So by creating content to satisfy all play styles rather then ‘invoking some sort of harmony’ casues as many problems as it attempts to solve
June 21st, 2007 at 9:43 am
There are far more important things to argue about, like the fact that the best actor in the world just released his autobiography!!! : http://www.amazon.com/All-Those-Moments-Villains-Replicants/dp/0061133892/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7861920-1190406?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182434892&sr=1-1
June 21st, 2007 at 10:03 am
In follow up, with the time invested issue, maybe shorter raids are needed. Instead of 5 hours to run this raid, make it that all raids in game are posible to compleate with in 1.5 hours. Make each raid part of an epic raid story line and ramping up the difficulty as you progress.
The more hardcore, opps sorry the more non casual raid guild will progress faster up the chain of raids than the casual player, thereby still letting have the better items, but the option to compleate the raids over a longer period is there for the casual player and therfore allowing them to obtain the same rewards but just at a much slower rate …
June 21st, 2007 at 10:42 am
“intense and community-driven players (how’s that for avoiding the word “hardcore”?) care about three things: 1) their stuff, 2) everyone else’s stuff, and 3) how everyone else got their stuff and whether it was easier than the way they got their own stuff.”
That is very true but per Darren / Cuppy (shut we are talking # 2) only maybe 1 or 2 % of players will achieve the hieghts of raiding successfully on a regular basis and therefore this 1 or 2 % will care about how i got my stuff, and wether or not theres is bigger than mine …
If that is true why do this 1 or 2 % have to be catered for in such a dramatic way as high end raid loot as ooposed to building a more harmonic game. Really is 1 or 2 % off your your bottom line that much …. bearing in mind 98 % of the player base is casual ….
June 21st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Being in a semi-casual raiding guild (i.e. we raid for FUN when we have time, not because we need to be 1337 or some such nonsense), I would absolutely LOVE if all raid content was broken down into short parts. Gruul’s lair, Magtheridon, and the occasional outdoor boss are all fun encounters because they get over with quickly and then if people have time you can move onto another one.
While it is possible to do the larger instances in small pieces, it generally isn’t encouraged because of the rediculous amounts of trash you have to reclear if you give up on an encounter and decide to come back later.
And there shouldn’t be random factors in fights that can COMPLETELY kill one of the chances you had to kill the boss. Such as the capability to randomly 1shot/disable a player and then targets the tank resulting in guarenteed wipe… or purely random crap where the randomly chosen positions of various environmental objects determines your chance of success from 1 to 99 percent.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pm
You know we are seeing more and more desginers quoting, ‘instant access to the action’ … maybe multiple short raids instead of massive 5 hour or more endavours is something we might see more off as next gen titles start coming out …. i hope so
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:47 am
The easy-to-access raid idea is nothing new. We talked about it during EQ2’s development. How well did that work out?
I’m all about spending content resources on stuff that will be seen by the majority of players. That said, it is often the small touches, regardless of the number of people who see it, that add flavor and uniqueness to a game. Before I was ever a raider in EQ or even thought I would be one, I loved reading about the fantastic exploits of other players in this game I was so immersed in.
Sure, raids get done by a small percentage of players, but in a game with 8 million subscribers that ends up being a significant number of people. Plus, as much as it pains me sometimes, raiding remains a high-profile aspect of discussion. Often a game is judged as broken or not-broken by the state of the raid game.
I’ve used a deliberately provacative phrase before that raiding as we know it is a dinosaur. It is worth noting, though, that people remain fascinated by dinosaurs. And really, would we want to live in a world without the mystery and imagination they bring?
Nor am I convinced that the debate and drama they bring is a bad thing. Because, after all, conflict begets passion and passion begets devotion. Devotion is good, because I prefer paying my bills to not doing so.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
“Often a game is judged as broken or not-broken by the state of the raid game.”
…are you serious? If a small population “raids” and the and a game is judged based on the state of the raid game, is it then a small population dictating whether a game is “broken” or not? Or does that logic not track?
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
I’ve been watching these blogs for awhile and this talk of “raid” vs “casual” has prompted me to put my 2 cents in
.
What appears to be the issue here is that there is a conflict between playstyles vs game mechanic vs reward.
The resoultion to this may be fairly straight foward, it may have been suggested before, and it may not be realistic, but then again look around the current MMO you happen to play, and you’ll find a multitude of things that don’t fit into a fantasy setting (maybe sci fi), and wouldn’t be considered “realistic.
Anyway I digress, I think the best way to handle this is:
Have a different set of equipment for each type of play style, but that armor works far more effectively for the play style that the gear is being used in.
For example:
You are a raider and have just looted the Breast Plate of the Raider – it has the following stats:
Breast Plate of the Raider:
In Raid:
Mitigation: 500
Reduces damage from AOE by 10%
Non Raid
Mitigation: 450
-2 vs Direct Damage Spells
Now you are a solo/group player and have just looted through a long quest series the Breast Plate of the Solo with the following stats:
Breast Plate of the Solo:
In Raid:
Mitigation: 450
-2 vs AOE spells
Non Raid
Mitigation: 500
Reduces damage from Direct Damage Spells by 10%
Now you can play around with the stats and effects and the like, as not all equipment is so easily comparable side by side, my example is simple on purpose. As you can see the “Uber” raid gear is great in raids but ok when using it to solo or group, where as the reverse is true of the solo gear…it is great against solo or group mobs but just “ok” in a raid.
So this is now what you have…
You have raid gear which is still uber, but in raid encounters only, and you can of course continue to upgrade the gear. It also has the side benifit of being servicable in solo or group encounters so that you won’t get pwned in a solo/group encounter and you can work toward getting a solo/group piece of equipment that is more suitable to solo/group encounters. If you like raiding then nothing has changed for you, you still get to raid and you still get to be challenged and you still get to earn uber loot, but now you compare yourself to other raiders not to solo/group oriented players.
Then you have solo/group gear which also is uber, but only in solo/group encounters, and can also be upgraded with other dungeon crawls or quest lines (or a combination of the two). It too also provides the added benifit of being servicible in raids (ie you won’t die in one hit by a raid mob) so that you can use this solo/group armor in raids until you earn/win a piece of raid benefitial gear that will server you better. Keep in mind that the this “uber” solo/group armor should typically be won through a series of quest lines and difficult group encounters (this may require creativity from the quest designers).
So now a casual player can have equally uber gear to a raider and a raider can keep the uberness they’ve always had. In fact as a pure raider would you even care what the solo/group player even got anymore, whould you even care that they didn’t “work hard” for it in a raid as you have? Same goes for causual solo/group players do you care what a raider has for gear anymore as your gear is just as uber as theirs and fits your playstyle?
I would think the answer would be no, as you can only compare your gear to the playstyle you choose (raiders only compare themselves to raiders and solo/group players only compare themselves to other solo/group players). Granted there will always be cross comparisons as it is only human nature, but as you can see now players would at least have a choice, and that my friends is what it’s all about…choice.
I may be off base with this but it seems to me to be a logical solution to what is seemingly an illogical premise.