Quote Originally Posted by Shipp View Post
And your opinion is perfectly valid. However the point was that side-grades eventually reach a point where they become upgrades, otherwise players won't feel like chasing the non-existent carrot anymore and they'll quit. If you don't agree with this, then that's your opinion. However it only takes one look around the MMO world to see it's nothing but chasing a carrot on a stick. When the carrot no longer is there, or there's only a half carrot left, or you swap a carrot for a squash, people are going to leave. Sure, that half carrot might be a great storyline, but once that's done, you have no reason to log on anymore. Once you halt progression of a character and just offer similar pieces to what is already obtainable, people are going to leave after the storyline.
I have to say that this sounds like an argument against vertical progression to me if you increase the level by whatever the new gear is not going to be better because it more closely fits what i want to build in my char but because it has higher stats. To me this just seems like the same carrot. A high str hat is a high str hat regardless of how much str it has relative to other str hats. I think if I'm not offered variety in gear options then the game becomes more repetitive to me because it's not just the repeating of content but repeating new content in order to repeat the same model char i already had 5 levels ago. Id rather do old content for what is effectively varied, different, and new gear (it's new to me because i have nothing like it) than do new content for what is essentially the same gear i had scaled up.