Itemization Primer I

It is certainly easy to play arm-chair developer these days and most bloggers get a lot of criticism for doing so. Readers seem to delight in pointing out that we aren’t developers and that we can’t possibly see the big picture. It seems that it is no longer acceptable to politely call something that is terrible terrible and suggest corrections. I’ve never been one to fear trolls though so I thought I’d write a very basic itemization primer for developers. I might not have all the answers but I certainly see a lot of mistakes being made by those folks being paid to do it and do have a lot of experience dealing with it from the other side. Sometimes an outside view is the best one

Less is more

There are simply too many items in MMORPGs these days. It has gotten to a point that in EverQuest II we are consistently finding items that are the exact same in every way but have a different name. When you are duplicating items and not even fiddling with a stat or two there is a problem. We really do not need ten or more item choices for any given slot for each class in a given level range. It seems that this occurs for two major reasons.

The first is fairly simple. Players demand more content every day. This leads to more dungeons. More dungeons mean more boss mobs and more boss mobs mean more loot tables. Developers seem to want to please everyone and try to squeeze an item for every demographic possible onto every job. That is just unnecessary. In the old days you knew certain monsters were good for certain classes and you took turns doing different things to take care of everyone. If developers reduce the loot tables of boss mobs but ensure that each dungeon has a solid mix of items that is acceptable and desirable.

Our second reason for loot proliferation is a bit more sinister. It is a “Skinner box” issue that has been created to keep players playing. By ensuring that every time you kill a boss you get some item, but not the item, we’re more inclined to keep coming back. It is like playing a slot machine. You know that with each subsequent pull you might win. Personally I detest this sort of development. The idea that a company would create poor items for this purpose is deplorable.

Having more items than necessary (or just making bad ones) isn’t required to use addiction focused tactics. EverQuest still has every game beat with its “common drop” “rare drop” system. Most of the time a mob would drop the same, common item. Sometimes it would drop the rare. You might even have an uncommon in there too. Every time that mob spawned you’d try to guess whether he had the item or not based on his attack speed or the effects he was using. Mobs used items back there! That was such a positive and exciting dynamic. When the Froglok Ghoul Lord spawned with a Ykesha you KNEW he had it because he would beat the snot out of you with it. This type of itemization is just as addicting as throwing massive amounts of useless items at us. It is also quite a bit more fun.

The added benefit is that this also allowed players to easily identify where they needed to spend their time. Loot planning was more fun. With items having less basis in story and being in far greater quantity it is hard to keep track of what upgrade comes from where. There is so much “static” due to item glut that you just don’t see the same sort of planning you did in EverQuest unless you’re a raider. There is no actual benefit to the player here. Shifting to an “only make what we really need” system would likely be well received.

Watch out for MUDflation

In every new expansion and/or patch players want to be able to progress their character. That is a natural thing. Developers seem to have become overly willing to allow them to do so and have really gotten bad with MUDflation. World of Warcraft is probably the absolute worst. Look at a character in WoW classic and compare it to one now. In only two expansions they’ve gone from “regular character” to “original raid boss strength.”

Setting a random percentage and increasing every statistic by that with every expansion doesn’t really add value to players. Some will perceive it as such but it really isn’t. If you make $4.00 an hour in 1920 and $40.00 in 2010 but bread went from $0.50 a loaf to $5.00 you’re not really doing better.

Inflating stats just for the sake of it brings no value to anyone. Letting them run rampant can have a drastic effect on a product. EverQuest II is an example at the moment because it is now expected that every character will have a 100% chance to critical hit. That removes the meaning of critical hit. Critical hits are now “hits” and non-critical hits are “failures.” Where do we go from here? Massive critical hits? Double critical hits? Death blows? There really isn’t wiggle room.

It is fine to inflate certain statistics more than others. Basic attributes, hit points and mana are all expected to go up. Special statistics need to be treated more carefully. Developers can still offer power increases by offering more attractive alternatives instead of just vertical enhancements. This lets players decide whether they want to keep pushing the one statistic up or try a different style.

There will always be inflation but whether a game uses single digit or triple digit is the issue. Going from 1000 hp in one expansion to 12,000 in the next might just be a bit too much. Keep the MUDflation down!

Look beyond the itemization spreadsheet

If I were to generically accuse itemization developers of anything it would be tunnel vision. I have no concrete evidence to support this but from practical experience I have to say it is accurate. Itemization developers spend too much time looking at their spread sheets and not enough time viewing the big picture. How many times have you seen a stat consistently show up on items geared for your archetype when it was of no actual value to your class? I’m willing to be every reader can think of at least one example. I can think of several. Are these oversights or just more of those “bad items” that are purposely put into games to keep us playing? I’m not sure but either way they need to go!

Itemization developers need to understand that a portion of their job is class balance. I know that sounds crazy. I know that there is already a class balance developer or two but the roles cannot be separated. Itemization teams need to be intimately aware of how the classes they’re itemizing for play. If they don’t know they need to start asking. Are they aware that plate healers are suppose to survive longer than chain and leather healers? Do they know that bards and shamans do not share stats? These are important questions. If an itemization team isn’t looking at how classes play, the abilities they have and the statistics that mater they’ll be missing the boat. Assumptions lead to poor items and they damage the credibility of a development team. When an item is just so woefully wrong our natural assumption is that the “professionals” aren’t doing the job they’re paid to do.

To be concluded in part two of the itemization primer.