How do you make an MMO expansion without basically retiring past

You don't.

Wouldn't make sense to go kill Onyxia again in WotLK, and I shouldn't have to.

>>383491681
All the raids and dungeons should "make sense" at all times, else you aren't adding content, you are just replacing content.
The game ends up being just as big as it was before the expansion, only some stuff got replaced with other stuff, not necessarily of higher quality.

You can add flat weapon scaling, so cool weapons are still cool.
But it won't fix that there is some progression system in terms of skills, or damage, or debuffs, or damage buffs.
Heck, one of the reasons Warframe is a shitty because is because damage mods stacking means your goal is to oneshot everything with some OP weapon, instead of enjoying the good weapon variety or melee system.

>>383491991
>You can add flat weapon scaling, so cool weapons are still cool.

So someone who has Ragnaros' hammer will not replace it all expansion long?
New expansions should still be enjoyable for hardcore raiders too, they should find new gear there, but it should be done in a way that won't make all old gear obsolete for all players.

>>383491306
at some point you have to add a different system that rewards players and gives them a feeling of accomplishment

what i like about BDO is that you dont need to get max level as fast as you can since theres a soft cap and leveling past it takes more and more time till it gets ridiculous

you also level your jobs up which can take quuuite a while or you try and get contribution points which allow you to connecxt the worlds nodes to create a huge trade network, then you can also get a bunch of NPC workers to gather materials and craft stuff for you

basically you need to give the players a different system besides straight up levels

this gear treadmill has been destroying zones and expacs for years now

>>383492140
>So someone who has Ragnaros' hammer will not replace it all expansion long?
You are being too Ragnos centric. There is other cool stuff before that .And it also means later expansions won't stupidly oversaturate with new "cool" weapons, because they need like 4 types for each class + bonus builds.

>>383492285
>jobs

Jobs are an easier fix.
Level 1 recipe: Leather 1 + Thread 1 = Boots 1.
Level 2 recipe: Leather 2 + Thread 2 + Boots 1 = Boots 2.

And so on, you need to do the old stuff to get the new stuff.
But if you make it so you need to do Molten Core and Naxxramas to get into Black Temple, I am not sure it will work as well.

>>383491306
>no dark ages gap

Don't make a themepark MMO, which is 95% of MMOs on the market. A themepark MMO is just that, you ride all the rides (raids) over and over again until you get bored, then you get a new ride by the developers, ride that one to death, then you're ready for the next one. Over and over again you ride these premade rides.

You have to break every convention, here's a few:
>themepark (as stated above)
>levelling
>linear damage/armour models
>tab targeting

Go look at what Dwarf Fortress does. Does a dwarf who has slain 50 dragons become immune to a goblin with a knife? No, if the goblin sticks his knife in the dwarf's throat, the dwarf dies. Go look at Men of War. Does a King Tiger that costs 250 points get to ignore the armoured car that costs 15? No, because if it fires on his back, it will penetrate the engine and set fire to it. Basically you need to completely drop power scaling, make it so a high level player with the best loot in the game can still get shanked by an orc he met 500 hours ago and die like a faggot.

None of the above is doable. The tech isn't there for an MMO with Mordhau-like combat where that would work, on top of that the majority of MMO players are massive faggots and when they get rekt by someone who is more skilled but just started playing, they will quit the game for good. So, all in all, don't make a themepark MMO with a PvE focus, they suck ass, go look at what EVE did instead.

>>383491941
>All the raids and dungeons should "make sense" at all times

TBC was stopping the burning crusade. Going back to stop it again every week for the next 10 years doesn't make sense unless you want to continually just add to the list of cataclysmic events facing Azeroth.

>>383491306
the main reason the older content got abandoned is because the new talents/abilities from the new expansions makes the old ones a joke.

like if you were 60 in TBC and did zul gurub it would be way easier than actually doing it in vanilla. it just gets easier with every expansion, you could probably solo it with a 60 in legion.

the best way would have a progression system before you can jump into the next expansion. make the mobs/new dungeons in the new zones very hard so you need the gear from raids to progress to the next expansion

>>383493279
>make the mobs/new dungeons in the new zones very hard so you need the gear from raids to progress to the next expansion

>How to fuck every new player and kill your game, the mechanic

>>383493358
well it would make the world/game more active instead of everyone just doing the latest LFR/raid

this was also how raids were done until wotlk. you had to progress through dungeons/heroics > tier 1 raid > tier 2 raid > tier 3 raid etc instead of just jumping right to tier 3

>>383493089
> Does a dwarf who has slain 50 dragons become immune to a goblin with a knife?
Yes, he becomes legendary skilled with a dodge so high a goblin is pure nuisance.

>>383493504
Nah, you could skip raids with crafted gear. Its enough of a pain boosting a newbie through attunements and getting him geared, let alone a new player who has to go through a dozen+ raids before even getting to the current content.

Doesn't make the world more active, either. Just spreads people out even thinner.

>>383493529
That's an active skill of the dwarf though (in this case it should be player skill). If the dwarf stands still and gets stabbed in the neck, he's gonna bleed to death like anyone else, it doesn't just take off 10hp from his 10000000000hp pool.

Also the legendary dodge doesn't always work.

t. lost a legendary dwarf to a lucky gobbo.

>>383491306
stop making MMOs revolving around PVE raids
they blow dicks

>>383491306
remove vertical progression in the sense of old classical RPG design and go for horizontal progression and instead of expanding on same features by adding stuff with bigger numbers you release new systems

>>383493701
RPG's are all about player progression. If the level 1 boar you saw day 1 is still a threat you to, powering up your character loses most of its meaning to a lot of people.

>>383493704
Every PvP-focused MMO is utter trash.

Well guild wars 1 managed to do that relatively good. I think.
first: the level cap didn't increase
second: the gear didn't increase
third: while there were new abilities added the old ones were still needed for many builds

>>383493804
>RPG's are all about player progression. If the level 1 boar you saw day 1 is still a threat you to, powering up your character loses most of its meaning to a lot of people.

Only for shitty themepark MMOs and trash P&P (e.g. D&D).

>Every PvP-focused MMO is utter trash.

Oh ok nevermind, you're one of those that actually like levels, giant HP pools, and PvE themeparks.

>>383493804
Why would the boar have a level attached to it?

>>383493826
So if I am a hardcore player who "completed" everything in the pre-expansion game, what did the expansion give me thats worthwhile doing?
Or if I am a casual player who wasn't done with the base game, does the expansion make it so its hard for me to get people for the base game content?

>>383493924
>Only for shitty themepark MMOs and trash P&P (e.g. D&D).
wrong

>Oh ok nevermind, you're one of those that actually like levels, giant HP pools, and PvE themeparks.

not an argument, but feel free to name the MMO you clearly have in mind.

>>383493965
Because roguelikes where some random animal can one-shot your character you've spent years playing are incredibly niche, and levels are a convenient, accessable method of determining power.

>>383491306
>How do you make an MMO expansion without basically retiring past content?
See: Final Fantasy XI for several expansions pre-Abyssea era.

>>383491306
Scaling all existing raids to max level and redistributing new loot through them, see: SWTOR.
Yep, it's shit.

>>383494086
>convenient, accessable
ah, so we excuse the lazy design for being lazy and continue to make 90s raiding themepark games

>>383494006
The interesting part of GW1 was that of you were 100% happy with your current build and setup the first 2 expansions were optional. If you don't want more story to do, access to new different areas, or any of the skills / gear it provides. Factions and Nightfall could be played as self contained games

Make the content exclusive to visuals that can be applied to any newer higher tier gear.

>>383494186
Convenient and accessable is not lazy design. Its literally the goal of good design.

>>383494086
>not an argument, but feel free to name the MMO you clearly have in mind.
All? None, it's why I generally don't play MMOs, but EVE, DAoC, and UO are good examples of not following the themepark cancer that WoW popularized.

>>383494262
convenience for the player has nothing to do with something abstract like "levels" and other RPG stat distributions

Don't increase level cap for ine. FFXI got away with that for several expansions in a row. Gear from vanilla was still good in RotZ, for example.

>>383491306
All gear should be made and sold by crafters. End game should be PvP based with players divided into different factions. Raids should only exist to provide materials for crafting and for the war effort. Weapons, armor, and seige equipment should degrade with use.

Also the game shouldn't be a kickstarter scam or Korean garbage which apparently will be the only MMOs every to come out for the rest of eternity because blizzard ruined everything.

>>383491306
I have a clever way it can be done.

Roll those older quests into "Legacy" packs. You have to use a pre-made character to do the quest with other pre-made characters, but you also get something thats useful for your current stuff.
So you can play it for fun without steamrolling through it, and you earn some rewards that make it somewhat worthwhile to do.

So you dont necessarily have to do the quest as you level up, you can do that on the newer content, but you can dive into it whenever you want to, and have some challenge to it.

>>383494385
Of course it does.

"Level 5" gives you a relative idea of how powerful a creature is at a quick glance, and pretty much everyone understands or can natively learn what a level is.

>>383491306
Put slutty costumes and unique emotes as rewards on a low drop rate or after a fixed amount of runs.

>>383494273
If I want to do something in EvE I have to level up (skills) get gear (ships & equipment) and complete and activity in a zone for a reward. (Combat Sites)

Its not different, you should stop pretending it is.

>>383494697
>i have to use core game mechanics

Yes. The point is, it isn't a linear on rails experience. Its like comparing the freedom of walking from home to the supermarket, with the "freedom" of climbing a ladder.

>>383495054
>it isn't a linear on rails experience
Its about as non-linear as a tell tale game. You can make some meaningless "choices" but in the end you're still going to be doing the same thing the same way.

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>WoWfags completely bewildered about what you could possibly do other than a gear treadmill because they don't play video games

lmao please fucking kill yourselves or at least remove yourself from this website

>>383495147
A Telltales game is infinitely more interactive than a movie, despite not being very interactive at all.
And a freer, player drive, economy powered MMO is not too "free", but still much, much freer than a ladder threadmill stats driven MMO.

>>383495298
>player drive, economy powered MMO

Yes, I'm sure mining ore -> manufacturing item -> selling item is fucking revolutionary and not at all present in basically every MMO on the planet, but we'll call it some buzzword bullshit to sound impressive

>>383495216
>login
>do dailies
>do weekly raids
>walk out

>log in
>farm herbs for 5 hours
>farm leather for 5 hours
>make a herbal boot
>use it in one dungeon
>it breaks
>log out, repeat tomorrow

Not that different, Mr. I Wish Characters Permanently Lost a Body Part On Death I'm So Hardcore.

>>383495434
In WoW you co-op against the AI to obtain the best and most powerful weapons in the game.
In a theoretical better MMO, you'd co-op against the AI to get some materials, trade with other players to get the rest of materials, find a craftsman who has the skill, and get the powerful weapon that way, through SOCIAL INTERACTION WITH OTHER PLAYERS IN A MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME.

>>383495434
>mining ore -> manufacturing item -> selling item is fucking revolutionary
Not that guy, but basing your entire game on it kinda is.
SWG was like that, sort of. And maybe that's why it's ded.

>>383495463

misquote? i didn't ask for a boring as fuck WoW greentext adventure, but thanks anyway

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>>383491306
>>383491306
Would need different servers for different expansions, so when you feel you are done with vanilla you can copy your character to a TBC server (repeat per expansion), meaning progress will be split between those servers BUT you can always go back to older content.

>>383495216
It's great, look at this tard >>383495463, he can't even imagine a game not being a WoW-like trash.