"barbie dressing" progression. Why?

[WaterMage]

What I call "Barbie dressing" are the games where your character is nothing and what he is wearing is everything. Where attributes don't measure your character capabilities. Only how fancy his gear is. I wouldn't call a game where you need weapons to be effective, like Elden Ring, a "Barbie dressing" game because gear has stat requirements and scales with stats. But a game like Albion Online or V Rising is, IMO, a Barbie dressing game.

And in the case of V Rising, the most popular mod for the game is Bloodcraft, which removes the Barbie dressing mechanics and adds proper RPG mechanics where your vampire levels up by practice.



I don't know of any player-made mod that does the opposite for any game. Take out the RPG and introduce Barbie dressing mechanics.

Why do game devs like "Barbie dressing" so much?

It only serves to kill power fantasy of being a powerful ancient vampire, and to kill immersion. It don't help gameplay. In Dragon Age, part of the lore behind the necessity of mages towers, is because magic is dangerous and powerful. Yet, in DA2 and foreward, mages are worthless without their staves.

[Vergil]

The clothes make the man. Seeing as you probably wear burlap bags and corn husks fashioned into a makeshift tunic I can see how this concept escaped you.

[Demonic Fate]

Gear in those games is usually randomly generated, which adds a Skinner box element to the progression one wouldn't get from static level-ups.

[WaterMage]

Gear in those games is usually randomly generated, which adds a Skinner box element to the progression one wouldn't get from static level-ups.

You could have the same RNG based progression without Barbie dressing mechanics. Eg - The monsters can drop reagents. You use reagents to research or improve existing spells. Makes more sense for a vampire to study powerful blood to improve his blood magic. Makes no sense for a vampire to find a new boot and now he suddenly can throw stronger fireballs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why do game devs like "Barbie dressing" so much?

There are multiple issues here.

MMOs usually revolve around gear grinds because of the start-and-stop nature of levelling. The level cap is almost always only raised at least once every two years when a new expansion releases, and in most MMOs the levelling is very fast. Even in Vanilla WoW, you could reach level 60 in a couple weeks. So once every two years, the player goes from level 60 to 70, and then what? The player would be out of progression. So the devs come up with ilevel treadmill, where during the expansion patches they add gear with arbitrarily higher numbers than the last patch's gear (the gear usually has exponential scaling, combined with tight DPS checks on the latest raid, so you can't just not grind and keep your gear from the last 1 or 2 patches. To play the new content, you HAVE to grind for the new gear). So to "keep up" and be able to do the latest content, you are grinding for gear from the latest patch.

A better solution would be to have very slow levelling like in FF11 and LotRO, where it can take several months to reach level cap. Also, raise the level cap in the patches, not just in a new box expansion every two years. Lastly, you do not want an exponential power scale for your gear. FF11's gear scaling is linear, and gear can also have very useful effects. So you can still be using a level 30 item even into your level 60s or 70s because it might let you hit 1 or 2 extra times. You are not flipping through gear as much as you would in a WoW-esque exponential scaling system. So there is much more emphasis on your character's innate power increasing.

However, you can't just have the player level up and increase their character's stats expansion after expansion, because you don't feel like you are really getting more powerful. It feels arbitrary that you are level 90, but you walk into the new zone and it takes just as long to kill a bear there as it did in the starter zone when you began the game years before. So the players need to be learning new abilities and traits. Unfortunately, it is difficult to pile on ability after ability for years on end without causing major design issues like players having far too many buttons to juggle, enormous power gaps between players, etc. So eventually the devs reach a point where they are satisfied with how a class plays and decide to "stop" there, making minimal additions after that. GW2 however figured out that they could have the player still learn new abilities in each expansion, but they are usually do not add ontop of your existing combat abilities. They either replace your current existing combat abilities (ie, learning a new elite specialization or weapon, which requires you to swap from your current spec or weapon to use that), or they are not combat related (ie, learning to be able to glide, and then learning to be able to ride ley lines of magic. Learning to breathe toxic gas so you can enter certain caves. Learning to ride a mount. Etc). So as the years go by, your character is still "learning" new things, just not getting additional buttons to put on their bar for combat.

For JRPGs, you run into a similar issue as the above where the game goes on for many dozens or even over a hundred hours, but the devs can't imagine many more powers for the player character to learn while levelling for that duration. The devs eventually settle in on a powerset for that character and want to keep it that way. So Rean and Jusis at level 197 in Trails into Reverie, 500+ hours into the Cold Steel pentalogy only have a couple more abilities than they did 15 minutes into Trails of Cold Steel 1 when they were level 1. Van at level 80 at the end of Trails Through Daybreak 2 has only learned a couple more abilities in the 200+ hours since the start of the first game. Since the devs are unwilling to add more abilities, then better gear becomes the only thing left to earn.

[J1M]

I would use the term differently. For when the gameplay has fallen away and dressup is all that's left (WoW xmog).

[WaterMage]

The player would be out of progression.

Progression don't need to be only level. For eg, Age of Conan introduced a thing called alternative advancement. A way to progress at lv cap.

Other example, you could have progression outside of level. A Warlock for example could have the following skills, Dark Magic, demonology and Hellfire magic. And level up with diminishing returns for each time reduced bonuses and increased leveling time, essentially softcapping the skill. You could make so players could never max such skills and get diminishing returns. Could also have complex spells to research and get attributes not for gear, but from completing quests, raids, dungeons and "achievements". Could also include unique "sidegrade" or only visual upgrade in spell effects to the player to hunt. There are N ways to have "progression" outside of gear. The end game could be collecting rare books, rare reagents and rare gear, not only collecting rare gear. About new abilities, you don't need to give "too much buttons", you can give some toggles. Eg - After getting a lot of reagents, reading books and etc, the warlock now has a toggle that turns all of their fire spells "green" and deal increased damage at hp cost.

Shadowbane has a lot of progression outside of gear at end game. Is all about city building, epic guild X guild wars and etc. In Shadowbane if we compare a naked warlock with the best in game gear warlock, we could expect something like 30% DPS difference.

Besides, I'm not only talking about mmos. Barbie dressing mechanics are present even in SP self entitled RPGs like V rising above.

[Ranselknulf]

I prefer my games to be realistic.

A barbarian warrior would not last long in a battle against demons and wizards without a set of +1 armor and a sturdy battle axe.

They might have some decent skill checks while naked for certain actions, but unless you are some sort of monk class or spell caster class, then armor / weapons / equipment is a necessity.

[Norfleet]

Why do game devs like "Barbie dressing" so much?

Probably because it's the only aspect of a game which doesn't easily succumb to a strict meta where 99% of the game's content turns out to be wasted devtime. Thus much of the endgame becomes playing with your dolls.

[J1M]

I prefer my games to be realistic.

A barbarian warrior would not last long in a battle against demons and wizards without a set of +1 armor and a sturdy battle axe.

They might have some decent skill checks while naked for certain actions, but unless you are some sort of monk class or spell caster class, then armor / weapons / equipment is a necessity.

"I want my game to be REALISTIC." "Fighting naked is okay if you are ASIAN".

[KOS-MOS]

Blade and Soul basically

[rusty_shackleford]

I prefer my games to be realistic.

A barbarian warrior would not last long in a battle against demons and wizards without a set of +1 armor and a sturdy battle axe.

They might have some decent skill checks while naked for certain actions, but unless you are some sort of monk class or spell caster class, then armor / weapons / equipment is a necessity.

"I want my game to be REALISTIC." "Fighting naked is okay if you are ASIAN".

That's basically how the boxer rebellion went tho

[Tweed]

Gear-based gameplay is much easier to tier, progress, and lock down than stat or skill-based gameplay.

[WaterMage]

strict meta

You can have a "rock paper scissors" design. For eg, in Shadowbane, A Vampire Warlock excels in 1v1 ganks with nukes (Mind Strike), debuffs (Shatter Will), and health drains, but struggles in large-scale banes against AoE-heavy Wizards or high-defense Fighters who resist mental damage.

but unless you are some sort of monk class or spell caster class, then armor / weapons / equipment is a necessity.

I think that depends in how magic is depicted. For eg, in warhammer universe, even the most powerful casters like Teclis uses staves to lower its miscast failure. In a Harry Potter game, wandless magic is very hard but feasible. Magic should be consistent with the in game setting. If in lore, casters needs wands/staves, they should in gameplay. If in lore is irrelevant, in gameplay, should be irrelevant.

Gear-based gameplay is much easier to tier, progress, and lock down than stat or skill-based gameplay.

Disagreed. if you look to the most barbie dressing games, like diablo 3, they have **** progression and **** number inflation.

[Norfleet]

You can have a "rock paper scissors" design. For eg, in Shadowbane, A Vampire Warlock excels in 1v1 ganks with nukes (Mind Strike), debuffs (Shatter Will), and health drains, but struggles in large-scale banes against AoE-heavy Wizards or high-defense Fighters who resist mental damage.

Well, now you've just described the meta. It's not actually important what it is. Just that it will inevitably exist.

[WaterMage]

Well, now you've just described the meta. It's not actually important what it is. Just that it will inevitably exist.

Meta is "you must spec this way because is the optimal way to play", nor "if you spec this way, you will be very good in sieges, but vulnerable in the situation A, B and if the enemy team has a C skill, you are screwed".

[Norfleet]

Meta is "you must spec this way because is the optimal way to play", nor "if you spec this way, you will be very good in sieges, but vulnerable in the situation A, B and if the enemy team has a C skill, you are screwed".

Class and mission-specific meta exists, yes.

[Tweed]

Disagreed. if you look to the most barbie dressing games, like diablo 3, they have **** progression and **** number inflation.

That's an example of bad itemization, not a condemnation of gear-based progression.

Median XL wears the crown for excellent itemization, but even terrible games like Starbound have a logical, tiered progression system, even if its oversimplified. It's one of the easiest ways to show the player their progression and a lack of certain gear or gear level can keep players from advancing to the next area.

[mercerxiv]

I think it's rather simple really. "Dress up" part is a remnant of a completely decayed overarching RPG system. Where did we start? Different gear with different stats and so on, and unique appearances. Over time people have complained (reasonably enough) that it sucks having all the cool looking sets and looking like a clown regardless because minmaxing requires sacrifices. After all, who wouldn't want to rock an iconic (let's say) T6 set for their class? So came around (eventually) transmog - so you can both have your minmaxed stats and have a cool looking armor. This is where I'd say the "dress up meta" really started picking up. Originally though, most transmog implementations have imposed severe limitations - plate could only be made look like other plate, swords like other swords. And IMO that's where they should have left it. But, as it goes, after all the crying and sobbing the restrictions started getting gradually relaxed, to the point where you can make plate look like cloth, and swords look like maces. From here we switch a little bit on the parallel track: as this was all taking place so was also the casualisation of MMORPGs. While people were whinging about transmog, the other (or perhaps overlapping) segment of the playerbase was also whinging and moaning about how hard it is to minmax stats, and how resistances are inconvenient, and getting right hit rate makes you sacrifice dps stats, and so on. So to the sound of that collective cringefest, devs started "streamlining" out more and more stats, and eventually mechanics too - like threat, etc.. The result of casualisation is that the games got more and more easy, the skill floor and ceiling got closer and closer to each other, and RPG elements got fewer and fewer. At the same time we have arrived to the now more or less standard version of transmog.

Transmog, from originally reasonable desire to look "cool" in your dungeon/raid set got gradually hijacked by degenerates who just wanted slutmogs on their characters, while RPG elements got simplified out due to devs listening to the lowest common denominator. This is how we got here, where a good chunk of RPGs are just dress up games, if you are lucky with some stat sticks.

Separately you have korean MMOs that followed a somewhat different progression (they have arrived at statstick gear much sooner and sold outfits for money way before us Westerners) but more or less arrived to the same-ish spot.

[WaterMage]

That's an example of bad itemization, not a condemnation of gear-based progression.

OK. Pick Gothic 1. Make it progress like ArcaniA ie - Gear based only.

Become better? No. Become a **** game.

Simple as that. Part of what makes Gothci 1 great is the progression.

[Tweed]

That's an example of bad itemization, not a condemnation of gear-based progression.

OK. Pick Gothic 1. Make it progress like ArcaniA ie - Gear based only.

Become better? No. Become a **** game.

Simple as that. Part of what makes Gothci 1 great is the progression.

Take a game, make it an entirely different game with bad itemization, be shocked at the results. No, it doesn't follow any logic. Even Gothic is based around gear progression, it happens organically compared to a loot piñata game.

[Xenich]

What I call "Barbie dressing" are the games where your character is nothing and what he is wearing is everything. Where attributes don't measure your character capabilities. Only how fancy his gear is. I wouldn't call a game where you need weapons to be effective, like Elden Ring, a "Barbie dressing" game because gear has stat requirements and scales with stats. But a game like Albion Online or V Rising is, IMO, a Barbie dressing game.

And in the case of V Rising, the most popular mod for the game is Bloodcraft, which removes the Barbie dressing mechanics and adds proper RPG mechanics where your vampire levels up by practice.



I don't know of any player-made mod that does the opposite for any game. Take out the RPG and introduce Barbie dressing mechanics.

Why do game devs like "Barbie dressing" so much?

It only serves to kill power fantasy of being a powerful ancient vampire, and to kill immersion. It don't help gameplay. In Dragon Age, part of the lore behind the necessity of mages towers, is because magic is dangerous and powerful. Yet, in DA2 and foreward, mages are worthless without their staves.

My guess is that "things" as carrots are more enticing than character advancement internally for people. Could also be that it is easier to develop around "barbie dressing" than both. Gear progression traditionally went hand in hand with character progression in the past (ie character progressed, gear supplemented), but with two progression points, the balance in content requires more attention, especially if the character progression is complex.

If you design entirely around character progression, I would think it would be easier to partition off your content to fall inline with that progression and on the other end, if it is gear focused, the contents rewards provides the means to progress through that content. When there is both, the combination could create issues in each phases progression if not carefully planned.

I think that is why many MMOs started dumbing down character progression. Take EQ 2 for instance, prior to the stat changes, different stats had different effects on various classes. Assassins for instance used Dex, str, int (and others if I remember right) which all had various effects depending on skill/attacks (using poisons for example). This layered progression combined with gear created situations where the class was able to achieve results through careful planning and clever and skillful use.

So, they dumbed down the stats, making character progression itself very limited, streamlined and focused (only one stat had use) and then offloaded the balancing of the class through the gear itself.

It seemed the same with WoW (though I think PvP was the drive that forced the dumbing down) and you see it in a lot of games over time where the developers dumb the game down so they don't have to pay attention to the intricacies.

Unfortunately, the result is bland character progression and cookie cutter design where skill in play is less RPG like (ie strategic choices in character design) and more action focused (strategy in execution).

Well, that is how it appears to me at least.

[Tweed]

Depending on what you're playing gear comes down to a "kit" for your class. In which case gear is necessary for playing the way you want to play which is something that goes back to the old roguelikes.

The quality of system depends on the developers.

[rusty_shackleford]

games where a pair of gloves have more stats than my entire character does are bad games

[TKVNC]

Honestly the only stats on items should be damage and armour. Perhaps buffs for magic items, but make them actually flavoured, not just arbitrary stats.

For example, no (generic) sword +2 strength, but maybe a unique sword with stats is acceptable.

Besides, strictly vertical progression is quite silly, but so is strictly horizontal. The issue is laziness and the demand for constant difficulty increases.

[J1M]

The only interesting items are those that include maluses.

[WaterMage]

. Could also be that it is easier to develop around "barbie dressing" than both.

Well, if you look to early 90s games, they had little to no Barbie dressing. And developing a game in that time was much harder.

Barbie dressing mechanics only started to become popular in mmos, after WoW. And in Single player games, around 2010s.

Honestly the only stats on items should be damage and armour. Perhaps buffs for magic items, but make them actually flavoured, not just arbitrary stats.

Magical weapons having unique effects like Gothic 2 - Claw of Beliar is ok.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

While people were whinging about transmog, the other (or perhaps overlapping) segment of the playerbase was also whinging and moaning about how hard it is to minmax stats

The problem is that by that point, the game revolved around speedrunning the same current raid over and over again for 6 months. You are running the slot machine for the gear on just that one raid's list. As opposed to the Vanilla progression path where it was okay if you didn't get the BIS gear from Molten Core. The game wasn't just Molten Core. You are just getting some better loot there and then you're going to go on to the next raid, and then the raid after that. Etc. But in Retail WoW where only the current raid matters, there is no next raid to progress to. So the only way to continue progressing is to keep pulling the slot machine and hope you get the BIS from this raid.

and getting right hit rate makes you sacrifice dps stats

WoW was increasingly becoming an action game. It never feels good to press a button and then you miss, like clicking a Cliff Racer 20 times and only hitting twice. Hit rates make sense in slower paced "RPG-ish" MMOs like FF11.

and eventually mechanics too - like threat, etc.

Again this makes sense in a slower paced game, not the extremely fast paced action game that WoW wound up becoming where you lose threat for two seconds and then someone goes from 100% HP to dead just like that. Retail WoW is incredibly bursty.

This isn't about players complaining. It's about the direction the devs took the game towards.

Transmog, from originally reasonable desire to look "cool" in your dungeon/raid set got gradually hijacked by degenerates who just wanted slutmogs on their characters

From what I have seen, the overwhelming vast majority of players are dressed as cool fantasy characters, not in bikinis.

[mercerxiv]

While people were whinging about transmog, the other (or perhaps overlapping) segment of the playerbase was also whinging and moaning about how hard it is to minmax stats

The problem is that by that point, the game revolved around speedrunning the same current raid over and over again for 6 months. You are running the slot machine for the gear on just that one raid's list. As opposed to the Vanilla progression path where it was okay if you didn't get the BIS gear from Molten Core. The game wasn't just Molten Core. You are just getting some better loot there and then you're going to go on to the next raid, and then the raid after that. Etc. But in Retail WoW where only the current raid matters, there is no next raid to progress to. So the only way to continue progressing is to keep pulling the slot machine and hope you get the BIS from this raid.

and getting right hit rate makes you sacrifice dps stats

WoW was increasingly becoming an action game. It never feels good to press a button and then you miss, like clicking a Cliff Racer 20 times and only hitting twice. Hit rates make sense in slower paced "RPG-ish" MMOs like FF11.

and eventually mechanics too - like threat, etc.

Again this makes sense in a slower paced game, not the extremely fast paced action game that WoW wound up becoming where you lose threat for two seconds and then someone goes from 100% HP to dead just like that. Retail WoW is incredibly bursty.

This isn't about players complaining. It's about the direction the devs took the game towards.

Transmog, from originally reasonable desire to look "cool" in your dungeon/raid set got gradually hijacked by degenerates who just wanted slutmogs on their characters

From what I have seen, the overwhelming vast majority of players are dressed as cool fantasy characters, not in bikinis.

So the whole post went way over your head, got it.
Devs took the game in basically Action/RPG direction (which is a lie, most of those games are just Action) precisely because of the playerbase that was whinging and crying. Now, not everyone was participating in that, but enough people were, and there was likely some pull on dev side to make the game have more "mass appeal". Regardless, this is not what this thread about, it's about RPGs turning into barbie dress-up games and that's what my post is about, so don't feel obliged to defend WoW classic or whatever it is you're trying to defend.

As for "from what I've seen people don't wear bikinis" - ok and? At no point did I say that majority of players do it. **** like that almost always applies to a minority, just a very vocal one. Additionally, probably looking in the wrong places. While there is some overlap between people who actually do content and degens, it's less likely to run into any of those actually doing content like raids, world bosses, pvp. Look instead around popular "roleplay" spots and you will find them.

Again, point there was not that they are the majority, point was that we've gone from a rather reasonable request from people to be able to use their cool looking gear without sacrificing stats, to many (especially asian) games featuring what basically constitutes statstick gear and separate appearance only outfits (out of which like 90% look like stripper outfits). This is where we enter the slutty barbie dressing game syndrome. Look at games like BDO, PSO2NGS, even GW2 to a degree (although there it's a fight between pervs and *****, and a normal people minority).

[Eyestabber]

Why do game devs like "Barbie dressing" so much?

Because it allows ****** devs to provide the illusion of depth without any actual depth. If your power derives 90% from gear and 10% from build choices, that means respecing your mistakes is 100% painless. It also prevents ******* from making "wrong" builds. Take witcher 3 for example. Your choice in "build" doesn't ******* matter since your damage comes from your sword and your tankiness comes from armor. So you can screw up all you want and the game will still be **** easy.